NBC DUMPING MOST OF ITS SITCOMS (Updated)

NBC, which again wound up at the bottom of the ratings heap at the end of the fall season, is tossing out a slew of shows that were its worst performers, including 1600 Penn, Up All Night, Guys with Kids and Whitney. Two other comedies, 30 Rock and The Office are ending their runs, and […]

THURSDAY NIGHT: NBC’S NOT SEEN TV

NBC may be making a marked comeback in the ratings between Sunday and Wednesday, but it is losing badly on Thursday night, a night that it once commanded with a Must See TV lineup that averaged more than 20 million viewers weekly. Last Thursday’s lineup, by contrast averaged just 3.2 million viewers, with its comedy […]

APPLE CEO APPEARS TO CONFIRM: AN APPLE TV SET IS COMING

Apple chief Tim Cook has left little doubt that the company plans to introduce a cutting-edge television set in the near future. In an interview Thursday night on NBC’s Rock Center, Cook said, “When I go into my living room and turn on the TV, I feel like I have gone backwards in time by […]

PEACOCK LAYS AN EGG ON THURSDAY

NBC, which got off to one of its best starts in years at the beginning of the week, had its feathers plucked ruthlessly on Thursday as it unveiled its much-promoted comedy lineup ahead of its competitors’ fall premieres. Particularly disappointing was its Saturday Night Live Election Special which drew just 5.16 million viewers, down a […]

THURSDAY RATINGS PLUNGE ACROSS THE BOARD

Ordinarily Thursday is television’s biggest night of the week. It’s also the night when advertisers spend the most. But those advertisers will likely be unhappy with what they got for their money on Thursday of this week. as audiences declined across the board. ABC aired the live finale of its singing-competition series Duets but drew […]

GUTHRIE QUIETLY TAKES OVER ANN CURRY’S JOB

A day after Ann Curry was ousted as co-host of NBC’s Today show, the morning show’s news reader, Savannah Guthrie quietly took her place. There was no special welcome for her and it wasn’t until after the show had already aired that Today‘s executive producer Jim Bell issued a statement saying that he was “thrilled […]

HEAT’S VICTORY HEATS UP RATINGS

With the fifth and deciding game of the NBA finals on ABC, not only did the Miami Heat run hoops around the Oklahoma Thunder, but the network also did the same vis à vis its competition, averaging 12.91 million viewers in the overnight ratings, expected to rise to around 16 million when the final results […]

EVIDENCE IN SANDUSKY TRIAL: NBC INTERVIEW

NBC has agreed to provide Pennsylvania prosecutors with a complete transcript of Bob Costas’s interview with Jerry Sandusky last November, including portions of the interview that were not broadcast. (Only eight minutes of the 36-minute interview actually aired on NBC’s primetime Rock Center.) Ordinarily it is the policy of news organizations not to provide unaired […]

ROCK CENTER CRUMBLES

While NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams outdraws nearly all of NBC’s primetime programs despite being broadcast at a time when far fewer viewers make up the total TV audience, Williams’s Rock Center continues to flop in primetime. Wednesday night’s edition attracted just 2.61 million viewers, which not only was a low for the series, […]

AND THE WINNER IS … ABC

Thanks to its annual broadcast of the Oscars, ABC wound up in first place on the Nielsen ratings chart for last week, averaging 10.68 million viewers. That figure was skewed by the 39.34 million who tuned in to Sunday night’s Oscar telecast, the No. 1 program of the week. After the awards show and the […]

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