• With Woodruff Hospitalized, ABC News' Ratings Continue To Drift
    For staffers at ABC News, these have been trying times. The death of longtime anchor Peter Jennings, followed by the serious war-zone injury to co-anchor Bob Woodruff, has sapped some of the division's strength. And it seems these tribulations have cost ABC News some of its viewers as well. While Woodruff recovers--slowly, albeit steadily, by most accounts--the network is alternating fill-in co-anchors. Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer, who hold down the fort at "Good Morning America," are taking turns working alongside Elizabeth Vargas, who announced recently that she is pregnant. The result? Not especially encouraging. "Season to date, 'WNT' is …
  • New York Observer Rips CNN Personality Nancy Grace
    She's been pilloried and mocked by "Saturday Night Live" and radio talk-show hosts coast to coast, chiefly for her bulldog-ish on-air style. But this week Rebecca Dana of the New York Observer takes the opportunity in a lengthy piece to attack Nancy Grace, star of "CNN Headline News," for her honesty--or, rather, her lack of it. Grace's life story is well known: a long-time prosecuting attorney in Atlanta, she was once engaged to be married to a man who was murdered. Thus began her lifelong dedication to administering justice in criminal matters. It's the particulars of the story, however, …
  • Sony And American Express Sign Up for E! Everywhere Initiative
    E! Entertainment Television's effort to launch its E! Everywhere concept--offering E!'s branded content on a multitude of platforms--got a boost this week when both Sony and American Express signed up, just in time for Sunday's coverage on E! of the Academy Awards pre-show, "Live From the Red Carpet." This will be E! Everywhere's official launch. "As part of the buy, Sony and American Express will get 30-second spots in the cable telecast, commercial units within E!'s broadband streaming telecast of the show and within the podcast feed, as well as commercial units at the beginning and end of the telecast …
  • Advertisers Step Up Their Interest In Gay Audiences
    Propelled by hit movies (think "Brokeback Mountain") and successful TV shows ("Will & Grace"), the advertising community is demonstrating increased support for gay-themed media. While there's no assurance that gay media will yield big audiences and big bucks--the new owners of The Advocate magazine are still struggling with their acquisition--the general opinion seems to support the notion that now's the time: consumers seem more tolerant of gay media and the gay community is more aggressive in announcing itself (and thus its considerable buying power). Among the gay-themed products in the pipeline or already out there, according to USA Today: Bravo, …
  • Final Tallies Are In, And The Winter Games Take Home Silver
    Lisa de Moraes, the acerbic TV columnist at The Washington Post, takes a hammer to NBC, which, let's face it, did not attract huge numbers to the Winter Games in Turin (uh, Turino in NBC speak). Was this the network's fault? Did it fail in its coverage? There's no evidence of that, nor any accusation. It's just that, when all was said and done, it appears that American audiences simply were not drawn to this year's Games, for whatever reason. Instead, they tuned in to homegrown, low-brow fare, such as "Dancing With the Stars" and "American Idol." De Moraes: "In …
  • Tyler Perry's 'House Of Payne' To Test Free-Programming Syndie Model
    Comedian and indie producer Tyler Perry, who has strong appeal within the African-American community, is going out on a limb, but the payoff can be enormous if he's right about the TV market. Perry is self-financing a brand-new half-hour syndicated television sitcom, "House of Payne," about an Atlanta firefighter who moves in with his parents after his drug-addicted wife burns down his house. The twist: Perry and his partners will offer the show free to a selected group of TV stations that agree to give it extra-heavy promotion in the local market. In time, if the program catches on …
  • Comcast's VOD Customers To Get IFC Films In Timely Fashion
    Comcast, the country's largest cable operator, has signed a deal with IFC Entertainment to offer selected IFC films to its customers at the very same time those pictures are released in theaters. The plan goes into effect later this month. The movies offered to Comcast subs will not be the same ones shown on the IFC cable channel, but rather those produced by IFC's independent film-making unit. The so-called "day-and-date" strategy has not played well with many in the theater business, but there appears for the moment to be an inexorable drive toward a broader experimentation with the technique. "I …
  • A Rather Late Summing-Up Of The Radio Business, 2005
    Ad Age's Abbey Klaassen, poring over the latest round of earnings reports, reports the obvious: 2005 was not a stellar year for the radio business: "Stations faced a dearth of political advertising in the fourth quarter, creating unfavorable comparisons to the previous fourth quarter, an election year. And while one benefit out of Hurricane Katrina was to demonstrate the resilience of radio and the medium's ability to communicate in the middle of chaos, it hurt the bottom line at several companies that had a major presence in the New Orleans area." Klaassen ticks off a series of winnner and …
  • Fox's Chernin Thinks $30 Not Too High For High-Def Film Screenings
    Is $25 or $30 too high a price to pay to watch high-definition movies at home via cable or satellite 60 days following their theatrical release? Fox President and CEO Peter Chernin thinks probably not, and he's moving forward with plans to offer Fox-produced features at a premium for those willing to handle the tariff. Although no final decision has been made, he told attendees at a Bear Stearns media conference in Palm Beach, Fla., that there's merit to the idea, which is still being developed. The Hollywood Reporter says, "Sources [say] the HD window would target consumption by families …
  • Americans Know Too Much About Homer And Simon, Survey Says
    For those who are convinced that America is sliding rapidly into irrelevance, here's more supporting evidence. "About 1 in 4 Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.) But more than half of Americans can name at least two members of the fictional [Simpsons] cartoon family," according to a survey conducted by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum. The survey found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just 1 in 1,000 people who …
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