CABLE NETS DRIVING NEWS CORP PROFITS

Its Fox broadcast network may have a higher profile, but News Corp’s cable networks proved to be the driver of profits during its last quarter. The company reported that operating income at its cable outlets rose 17 percent to $993 million on revenue of $2.8 billion, largely as a result of solid ad sales for […]

SPIELBERG’S TV DRAMA DROPPED

It’s not often that a project connected with Steven Spielberg comes crashing to earth, but such is the case with his expensive effects-laden Terra Nova, which was canceled on Monday by Fox TV. The time-travel series, which debuted with 9.2 million viewers, wound up the season with 7.2 million — a number not regarded as […]

IDOL‘S RATINGS: BANGED AGAIN

The first half hour of Fox’s American Idol vied with CBS’s The Big Bang Theory Thursday night, and it appeared that — like last week — ratings results for the two shows among adults 18-49 would come down to a photo finish when final numbers are counted, with actual differences statistically insignificant. According to preliminary […]

NFC CHAMPIONSHIP DRAWS MASSIVE AUDIENCE

Sunday night’s primetime coverage of the NFC Championship game between the New York Giants and the San Francisco 49ers on Fox averaged an extraordinary 52.73 million viewers, peaking in the first hour of primetime (7:00 p.m.) with 55.92 million, according to overnight figures released by Nielsen Research. Surprisingly, shows airing opposite the game were virtually […]

NEWS CORP (FOX), DIRECTV MAKE PEACE

In a rerun of the ending of similar battles between broadcast networks and satellite and cable distributors, News Corp and DirecTV have reached an agreement that will keep Fox-owned networks on the satellite broadcaster without interruption. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but DirecTV has claimed that Fox had been demanding a 40 percent […]

X FACTOR DRAWS SMALLEST AUDIENCE TO DATE

Ordinarily Fox TV waits until after its coverage of post-season baseball before introducing its fall lineup, since the baseball coverage tends to disrupt viewer habits. It may regret not having followed that strategy in the case of Simon Cowell’s The X Factor, whose ratings plummeted when a rained-out game forced it to move to Sunday […]

BART AND KOBE HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON

The actors who provide the voices of The Simpsons and the athletes who compete in the NBA are clashing with the powers who write their paychecks — and it now appears that they’re losing and that both the next season of The Simpsons and at least the first weeks of the basketball season will be […]

FOX CENSORS BALDWIN’S PHONE-HACKING JOKE

Alec Baldwin has revealed that he bailed out of his appearance on Sunday night’s Emmy awards telecast after Fox TV, which televised the ceremony, refused to air a pretaped joke he made about the British phone-hacking scandal. Fox’s parent, News Corp, which owned the News of the World tabloid, which engaged in the hacking (it […]

HIGH COURT TO CONSIDER FCC OBSCENITY RULES

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review a federal appellate court’s decision that appeared to nullify FCC’s rules on indecent broadcasts. It indicated that its consideration will be limited to whether the commission’s “indecency-enforcement regime violates the First or Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” Last year a lower court appeared to toss […]

IS HULU A TAKEOVER TARGET?

Hulu, the video site owned by the corporate parents of ABC, NBC, and Fox-TV as well as Providence Equity, may be the target of a possible takeover attempt by Yahoo!, published reports, led by the Wall Street Journal, said today (Wednesday). The Los Angeles Times reported that it had confirmed that an unsolicited offer had […]

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