ER CREATOR: EDGY SHOWS NOW GOING TO CABLE

Writer/producer/director John Wells, who was responsible for bringing such shows as China Beach, ER, and The West Wing to television said on Thursday that he would have struck out if he tried to sell the networks any of those shows today. Instead, he would have taken those shows to cable. Currently, his Shameless airs on [...]

FOOTBALL IS THROWN FOR A RATINGS LOSS

The most-watched television show last week was not NBC’s Sunday Night Football. In fact, the contest between Baltimore and San Diego ranked only fourth on the Nielsen ratings list for the week, presumably brought down by competition from the season finale of CBS’s Survivor: South Pacific. No, the No. 1 show was CBS’s eight-year-old drama [...]

WHERE DID ALL THE SUNDAY VIEWERS GO?

There were disappointments galore Sunday night as the new season saw returning shows and new entrants draw relatively weak overnight ratings. Versus the same night a year ago, CBS’s 60 Minutes was down 16 percent, The Amazing Race down 21 percent, The Good Wife down 12 percent and CSI Miami down a whopping 31 percent. [...]

DGA SAYS TV PRODUCERS PLEDGE DIVERSITY BUT DON’T PRACTICE IT

The Directors Guild of America has accused television networks and producers of paying lip service to the idea of racial and gender diversity in the hiring of directors but by and large failing to do so in practice. According to results of a DGA survey released on Wednesday, during the 2010-11 season, white males directed [...]

NETWORKS’ UPFRONT SALES ARE WAY UP

Judging from their success selling ads during the just-completed upfront market, the major television networks appeared to be returning to health — robust health at that. (The upfront market is a period in May and June when the networks sell about 65 percent of their advertising time for the coming season beginning in September; the [...]

COMCAST NOW OFFERS VOD FROM ALL NETWORKS

Throw away the TV guide. If you’re a Comcast subscriber, you’ll be able to watch many network television shows any time you wish. Comcast said on Wednesday that it has become the first cable-TV provider to offer programs from all four major television networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, on its video-on-demand service beginning the [...]

CAN U.S. NETWORKS AFFORD THE ROYAL WEDDING?

After incurring heavy costs with their coverage of the uprisings in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia as well as the Japanese earthquake and tsunami disasters, it’s unclear whether the broadcast networks and cable news channels will be willing — or able — to devote the kind of resources to the wedding of Prince William and Kate [...]

IS THE DVR REALLY TO BLAME FOR FALLING RATINGS AT 10:00 P.M.?

While network executives have been blaming the DVR for the low ratings of 10:00 p.m. shows in recent years, today’s (Monday) New York Times points out that many cable shows during that hour are thriving. For example, it noted, MTV’s Jersey Shore, which airs at 10:00 p.m. on Thursdays, averages about six million viewers in [...]

CBS RULES ALL-RERUN NIGHT

All four major networks aired a full schedule of reruns Thursday night. The somewhat surprising result is that CBS managed to do quite well with its mix of comedies and dramas, taking first place in total adults in every half hour of primetime — as well as first in adults 18-49 in every half hour [...]

ALL NETWORKS JOIN SUIT TO SHUT DOWN NEW TV WEBSITE

All four broadcast networks, PBS, and Major League Baseball have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against a video website, Ivi.tv, claiming that it is violating their copyrights by putting their shows online. “This is a company that’s simply stealing our broadcast signals and copyrighted programming and streaming them on the Internet without permission,” the complaint [...]

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