• Season Ends For Many TV Viewers BEFORE Season Finales
    It seems to be an anticlimactic TV season. Many networks shows have witnessed not only falling ratings in their finales versus a year ago -- but weirdly lower ratings versus recent in-season episodes.
  • Selling A TV Network, Inside Stock Market Info, Or Alec Baldwin Jokes
    Nobody is selling a broadcasting network today -- not Walt Disney, not Sumner Redstone, not Comcast (wait, we are getting ahead of ourselves). But people are, in fact, trying to sell information about the possible selling of a broadcast network. One opportunistic -- and former -- Walt Disney employee allegedly only wanted some $15,000 for such insider information. That seems cheap compared to what one would imagine for the potential multi-billion sale of a network such as ABC.
  • Weather Or Not: A Snowy Super Bowl -- Or Rainy Miami Beach NBA Playoffs?
    It's not enough to choose a cold-weather Super Bowl. Better to choose a place where there's a 90% predictive weathercast it will snow that weekend in February.
  • TV Networks Hope To Grow Big While Looking Small
    A TV niche only takes you so far. Peter Roth, president of Warner Bros. Television, believes that's the case for CW. The highly targeted network for young women -- women 18-34, specifically -- perhaps needs to grow up a bit. So it's picking up "Nikita," an action-adventure that Roth says will "expand the brand."
  • Tired Of Reality Shows? Broadcast Networks Are, Too -- For Now
    Just two reality shows out of 36 new broadcast network shows are in the works for the 2010-2011 broadcast season. What does this say about the new season creatively, if not financially? There must be reality show burn-out among viewers and advertisers.
  • Professional Athletes? Just Another Name For Reality-Show Entertainers
    More doping allegations against famous athletes -- this time about a big-name cyclist, Lance Armstrong, and other top cycling stars. What do viewers feel about this? Weariness and perhaps resignation.
  • We're Begging You, TV: More Crazy Leno/O'Brien Stories, And Kimmel Live Commercials
    ABC's Jimmy Kimmel again gives us the shorthand state-of-TV-business report. We can only hope TV and media agency executives do the honorable thing -- and respond with crazy business decisions.
  • More TV Shows Everywhere: Now, How Do Networks Tell Viewers About Them?
    With NBC suddenly adding to the wealth of new shows for advertisers to mull over -- some 13 in all - one question remains, how to market all of these programs?
  • TV's 2010 Upfront Faces Five Years' Worth Of YouTube
    The upfront presentations are in full swing this week -- all on the fifth-year anniversary of YouTube. TV networks realize that while the democratization of video on the Internet is great for viewers, that's only one piece of the puzzle.
  • Turning Back The TV Development Hands Of Time At NBC: Will Viewers And Advertisers Follow?
    What is this, 1992? NBC has announced 11 new shows over the last several days. Seems like the good old days, when networks had plenty of dough to throw around, with CPMs always seemingly going higher no matter what shape the economy was in -- and when networks went with big expensive upfront program presentations. In recent years, NBC, as well as CBS and others, could offer as few as three new shows for a new season.
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