DUGARD INTERVIEW A HUGE COUP FOR ABC

Diane Sawyer’s interview with Jaycee Dugard on a two-hour special edition of Primetime Sunday night, which averaged 14.8 million viewers, has turned out to be the most-watched summer newsmagazine telecast since June 20, 2004, Mediaweek reported today (Tuesday). For ABC, it noted, the telecast represented ABC’s biggest audience in the two-hour period for a non-sports […]

WILL MORGAN BE “DANGEROUS” TO KING?

CNN announced Tuesday that Piers Morgan’s interview with Larry King will air on Wednesday night. It did not indicate whether the interview had been — or will be — pre-taped. However, it comes after King’s surprising criticism during a BBC radio interview that CNN had oversold Morgan as an unpredictable and “dangerous” interviewer. Whether Morgan […]

GRAMMYS DRAW BIGGEST CROWD SINCE 2001

Sunday night’s CBS telecast of the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards drew an average of 27.56 million viewers, peaking in the 9:00 p.m. half hour with 29.30 million — the biggest audience to watch the music awards show in at least a decade and up 7 percent from a year ago, when 25.87 million tuned in. […]

FOOTBALL CRUSHES RIVAL TV SHOWS THIS SEASON

This season’s NFL football telecasts are recording the highest ratings in history and drawing twice the number of viewers than the average non-sports television show, MediaWeek reported on its website Monday, citing Nielsen figures. More than 150 million people have watched at least part of an NFL game this season versus 146 million by this […]

ABC-ESPN — THE REAL WORLD CUP WINNERS

There will probably be more people watching the July 3 NASCAR 400 in the stands at the Daytona International Speedway than watching it on the handful of 3D sets currently in consumers’ homes, but TNT said Monday that it was not undertaking the 3D telecast for the ratings but for “the experience.” In an interview […]

TV ADS COST LESS IN FIRST HALF OF 2010

The average 30-second spot on network television cost $104,051 during the first six months of this year, down about 10 percent from the same period a year ago, according to MediaWeek magazine, which cited figures from TargetCast. Fox commanded the highest unit price, $200,008 per spot, while those for ABC and CBS went for an […]

JESSE STONE FILM: FIRST OVERALL; LAST AMONG KEY DEMO<

The latest installment in CBS’s Jesse Stone made-for-TV movie franchise drew the top ratings Sunday night, placing first in overall viewers in every half hour between 9:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. as it averaged 11.38 million viewers. On the other hand, it wound up dead last in each of those half hours among the key […]