The cast of “The L Word” were the ladies of the hour (actually, only for a half hour) during the show’s presentation at the Television Critics Association press tour Wednesday. Going into its sixth and final season, executive producer, writer and director Ilene Chaiken and several cast members, including Jennifer Beals, gave insights into the series, the fans and the upcoming season.

Showtime has promoted the new season by teasing the storyline of Jenny’s murder mystery. How did Chalken decide which character to kill off?

Chaiken: The trouble that Jenny got into over the years and the fact that she just provoked everyone… She is the character people love to hate and provoked rage, and it made it interesting to tell that story.

Would the outcome of the murder mystery play into the potential spinoff? (See Related: Showtime’s Bob Greenblatt Reveals Details on ‘L Word’ Spin-off)

Chaiken: It doesn’t lead into it directly. The two stand alone and separately. Should the spinoff move forward to series, then yes it will.

Will the murder mystery change the tone of the plot?

Chaiken: It’s not a dominant storyline. This season is about lives and characters and relationships. The tone hasn’t changed. [It’s still a] drama with some humor about life and love and career. The so-called murder mystery storyline will finally put a few things into place….We wanted to devote the last eight episodes to telling stories about these characters we know and love.

Guest stars in season six?

Lucy Lawless, Elizabeth Berkley

When did “The L Word” hit its stride?

Chaiken: We hit our stride in our sixth season. Hopefully we’ll go out on a high.

Jennifer Beals: With each actor you have a pride from a certain season. I was most proud of my work in the second season because I was given so many challenges. The sixth season I really like a lot where we’re trying to adopt a baby.

Pam Grier: We had great, superb guest stars, actors who came on our show to assist us. Every episode was an arc within arc, and the entire season was a wonderful arc. Out of it was so much information that we could continue exploring.

Favorite fan encounters

Beals told a story that literally moved her to tears about a 16 year-old girl who recently came out and told her the show helped save her life when she had contemplated suicide. “[It’s great to] give people any kind of encouragement to be their most authentic self.” “I have a weird disease where I cry in front of large crowds,” she joked.

Katherine Moennig: “The great thing about show is loyal fan base. Even when they’re discouraged about the storyline, they still stick in there. It’s the most profound moment when you get letter and say how live changed. That’s the power of televisions. [I’m] lucky enough to be on show that can deliver strong message.”

Jan 14 2009 6:04PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (2) |

There were indeed multiple personalities on the “United States of Tara” panel, the show about a wife and mother openly living with dissociative identity disorder. The new Showtime series stars Toni Collette, John Corbett, Rosemarie Dewitt and executive producers Diablo Cody and Alexa Junge were among the group at the Television Critics Association winter press tour. Steven Spielberg, who originated the show’s concept, opened the presentation.

 

Here are the highlights.

 

Who is the creator of the series?

 

Diablo Cody: Original the idea came from Steven Spielberg and I fleshed out and created the characters and world.

 

Is this an extreme of someone who existed? Or is it a fantastic case for entertainment purposes.

 

Diablo Cody: This is not the kind of series that you can base on imagination. The behavior of Tara seems hard to believe. There are certainly people who live their lives this way. This is not a flight of fancy in any way. In this case, I wanted to make sure it was completely grounded.

 

Toni Collette: I didn’t want to make fun of this disorder. This show is based in reality.

 

What attracted you to this project?

 

Toni Collette: I never had any aspirations to work in TV, but I picked up this script and read it immediately and as soon as I closed the last page, I turned to my husband and said I had to do this. It was so delicious to read. It’s a dream for an actor to play so many parts.

 

Is the tone comical or serious?

 

Alex Junge: That’s one of the beauties of being at Showtime -- the freedom to cross-breed, a real willingness to be as funny as we want and as dark as we need to be. That’s thrilling creatively. It represents the real world better than a real delineated funny or not.

 

Diablo Cody: Tonally it felt limitless to me. We were able to deal with comic situations in their lives and tragic situations. It felt more like life and less lie a genre.

 

Who is Toni’s favorite “personality” to play?

 

Toni Collette: I can’t make a decision about who I like the most. I enjoy playing all of them. They all represent different parts of Tara. I wanted to make them complete individuals.

 

Darryl Frank (EP): You will see new one emerge by the end of the season.

 

“United States of Tara” premieres Jan. 19 at 10 p.m. on Showtime. See a preview of the new series below.

Jan 14 2009 12:56PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

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Joss Whedon joined the cast via satellite in Boston to answer critic’s questions about his new Fox series “Dollhouse” during the show’s panel at the Television Critics Association’s Winter Press Tour.

The show made the media rounds last summer when it was announced that Whedon would have to reshoot the pilot after executives screened the original and requested changes.

The cast addressed the reshoot during the panel.

 “We follow that man and what he says goes,” star Eliza Dushku said. “I followed him other times and other places. He makes it right. He is the captain of the ship. I think we all have a fundamental, full-force sense of trust with where he’s taken us.”

Actor Fran Kranz said, “It wasn’t too difficult for me. I never saw it as doing another pilot. I never saw it as a step backwards, but a step forward.”

“Joss looked at it as an opportunity,” the show’s Tahmoh Penikett  said. “It was a warm up to working with Joss and everyone. It kinda warmed you up for new thing. We took it a slightly different direction.”

Whedon said the structure of the episodes make it possible for someone to join the series without watching previous episodes, while still advancing the show’s mythology.”

“The first five are all very much standalones. The sixth gets into working of the dollhouse, and the back 13 get into mythology.”

Dushku also gave critics insight into her character’s development over the course of the thirteen episodes.

“I have had many flaws and many glitches,” she said. “That’s sorta where the show takes off and we’re focusing on Echo’s character and she’s absolutely ‘glitching’ and staring to become self aware. Memory wipes aren’t entirely working.”

Whedon says he initially had mixed reactions to being moved from Monday night to a Friday night slot, but has eventually became more comfortable with it.

“I had a bad experience once on a Friday. At the same time I knew that was just sort of a instinctive reaction to what’s happened before,” he said. “I’m excited to be matched with ‘Terminator’. This was a different agenda. It’s about rolling out 13 episodes and letting people come to the show and grow with it. Ultimately, I feel much more comfortable there than Mondays.”

Critics who saw the pilot asked Whedon whether "Dollhouse" will incorporate his trademark humor as the series moves forward.

 “I have less opportunity to be totally silly,” Whedon said. “But it’s me we’re talking about. We can’t fight the funny. Humor finds it way into the mix. I couldn’t make a show that is relentlessly serious.

When asked about whether he would do something like "Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog," his strike-induced musical project again, Whedon said, “We’d like to do that again. It’s a matter of time and the venue.”

"Dollhouse" is set to debut Feb. 13 at 9 p.m. on Fox

Watch a promo clip below:

Jan 13 2009 4:11PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (2) |

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Fox offered its luncheon panel at the TCA press tour Tuesday on behalf new animated sitcom Sit Down, Shut Up, about a high school faculty in a small Florida fishing town. TCA members lunched on mac ‘n’ cheese, chocolate milk and other school-lunch fare on cafeteria trays in honor of the show premiering on April 19. (Click here for complete TCA coverage.)

But the conversation turned continually back to canceled cult Fox comedy Arrested Development, from much the same auspices—executive producer Mitchell Hurwitz, and cast members Jason Bateman and Will Arnett.

It’s understandable. The lunch room was essentially the original Arrested Development fan club. By all accounts, the show did not grab a large audience, but it had the critics’ full attention. It was one of the most critically-acclaimed comedies in years.

A sampling of the Arrested Development questions and answers at the Sit Down, Shut Up panel:

Q: What’s the status of an Arrested Development movie?

A: Hurwitz says they are “really close” to making it happen. They’re nearly done with a deal with the movie company Fox Searchlight, and they have a story, he said: “It’s Valkyrie meets Hotel for Dogs.” (Cue ballroom full of critics busting guts; the critics do love this guy.)

Q: Why didn’t Arrested Development last? Was it the unlikable characters?

A: Several people answered this question, with points about the characters being “human” and “flawed,” rather than unlikable. They related this aspect of characters on hit sitcoms from the past such as Seinfeld and All in the Family and suggested that while characters in Sit Down, Shut Up are “despicable,” they’re also not entirely unlikable.

Hurwitz, Bateman and Arnett also made points about the accessibility of AD, the perception that the show seemed to require a real investment on the part of viewers. Arnett said people saw it as “homework,” like something they should be watching. Bateman said he thought DVD was a big new way to watch TV at that time and a lot of people thought, “I’ll just wait til it comes out on DVD and watch it all the way through,” he said. “Which is a great way to watch it.” (That, or a DVR.)

All three pointed to the fact that the way audiences were measured when the show was on did not necessarily account for all of their fans. DVR viewing, for example, was not counted when Arrested Development was on and college dorm viewing was just being incorporated into Nielsen stats.

Q: So have Arrested Development alumni spent much time thinking about why it didn’t last?

A: Um, clearly yes. (That was a rhetorical question posed by Arnett, actually.)

Jan 13 2009 5:09PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

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Critics at TCA’s American Idol panel wasted no time asking the question on every Idol fan’s mind as the show returns tonight: When will Paula Abdul and new judge Kara DioGuardi throw down? (Click here for complete TCA coverage.)

For her part, DioGuardi said her role is not to “take care of Paula,” as one critic suggested. “I was hired to give my opinions after working with best in the music market and internationally,” she said. “I’m opinionated, feisty and strong. I think you’re gonna see that this year.”

Opinionated? Feisty? Good signs!

But Paula dismissed any tension, dashing any hopes for a primetime catfight.

“I was never quoted saying I had any problems hiring Kara,” Abdul said. “She was a stranger I met in New York and moved her into my home in Los Angeles and introduced her to publishers. She was the best roommate I ever had. She walks in her sleep. It was one of the most hysterical things. We were partners in crime. It is the ironies of all ironies that she was hired. It’s fantastic. We’re great friends. We have a great history. And it bothers Simon to no end.”

And if Simon’s bothered, that’s good news for the show.

Abdul also addressed reports that she’s upset with Idol producers over an incident last year in which former contestant and obsessive fan apparently committed suicide near Abdul’s home in Los Angeles.

“I didn’t have any confrontation with any of the producers at all,” she said. “I was not quoted saying anything disparaging at all. I am a big fan of the show. I am blessed to be on the show. It’s the greatest show on television.”

She did, however, confirm that she told producers that the woman, Paula Godspeed, was a stalker: “That is true. I can’t talk about it anymore. It’s an ongoing police report.”

Executive Producers Ken Warwick and Cecile Frot-Coutaz also addressed questions about adjusting the show’s musical choices in response to last season’s more youthful audience.

“We do have to service our demo, which on a show this size is absolutely huge,” said Warwick. “We have to educate a lot of listeners. So, it’s a difficult balance each year to find what everyone’s gonna know. We had a kid who didn’t know Stevie Wonder. The younger demo dropped. We are addressing it this year.”

As for speculation there would be fewer theme nights and more guest mentors, Warwick said, “There are a lot of people who have been approached. At this moment in time I can’t say who or what will be on.”

Added Frot-Coutaz, “There are the same number of theme numbers. The question is about the mentor that comes with theme nights. In terms of our storytelling, we don’t want the focus to be off of the journey of the contestants. It’s about the kids and their journey. That’s what we meant by that.”

Jan 13 2009 4:06PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

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At this morning’s Television Critics Association panel for Fox’s Lie To Me, actor Tim Roth and others discussed how the show—in which Roth essentially plays a human lie detector—will distinguish itself from CBS’ hit procedural The Mentalist. (Click here for complete TCA coverage.)

Roth: “I haven’t seen The Mentalist. The proof’s in the pudding. I’ve heard about it because these guys talk about it. We are what we are. We’re our own thing. I don’t think we need to get too worried about it.”

Brendan Hines (Actor): Our show is based in actual science where as The Mentalist is more of a scam. And they deal with murder every week. We go more places, whether domestic drama or political power. It’s based in actual science.

Samuel Baum (Creator): It’s based on cutting-edge research.

They also addressed the fact that Roth will not disguise his British accent.

Roth: “I know work goes into dialects and you have to get specific to convince people that’s where you’re from. Do you want the added work? I don’t know how Hugh Laurie does that.”

David Nevins (Executive Producer): Audiences are more comfortable with British accents than you think. [For example], Simon Cowell and Gordon Ramsay. Americans think British accents make you smart.

And where do the creators get the show’s storylines?

Baum: “I know no one lies in Los Angeles, so we are limited to set stories here. [laughs] Read the newspaper. The range of cases is Lie To Me. There are as many lies as there are people.”

Click image to watch a trailer:

Jan 13 2009 12:02PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

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Don’t call it a comeback: Ugly George never really went away. You might say he’s just between platforms.

It’s been more than 30 years since George Urban hit the streets of New York City—outfitted in a silver lamé singlet and a bulky backpack with a shoulder-mounted camera rig that looked like it was swiped from a storage closet at NASA—and began documenting his attempts to pick up chicks and persuade them to undress.

His adventures, which included many successful conquests, appeared on Manhattan Cable in the late 70s and early 80s as The Ugly George Hour of Truth, Sex and Violence, a seminal DIY cable-access program that stirred the passions of late-night fans and anti-indecency crusaders alike, and turned Ugly George into a New York folk hero.

In the years since, Ugly George has kept at it—still picking up girls, still happening upon celebrities on the street, still looking for truth and sex (there was never any real violence on the show, he notes—only "implied" violence when people would threaten him on the street). He resurfaces periodically in newspaper and magazine stories (like this one!) that herald his return. He was the subject of a documentary, released last summer on DVD, called Boob Tube that celebrates him as a forerunner of reality TV and the exhibitionism of Girls Gone Wild.

But these days, Ugly George wants to talk about media convergence—and he’s got his sights set on a new screen: the big one.

When we met at a café on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the camera rig (since upgraded with a Panasonic camcorder) sat on the chair across from him. Pasted inside the small satellite dish on his backpack was a flyer advertising “Ugly George’s Pick-Up Line” (the 900 number was blacked out).

Before showing me several clips on his MacBook, Ugly George told me about the test screenings he’d attended recently at multiplex theaters, demonstrating video projectors as an alternative to the traditional film models.

After exhibiting some of his own archival clips at one of those screenings, he came away convinced that audiences would be open to watching (or more to the point, paying to watch) even poor-quality video in a theater—and that now is the time for The Ugly George Hour to return bigger, if not necessarily better, than ever.

“I put on, technically speaking, the worst show on TV,” he said. “Except everybody watched it.”

As evidence, he points to the “amazing number of high-class celebrities [who] contrived to find me and say something outrageous on my show.”

Indeed, the list of luminaries who had cameos on The Ugly George Hour is impressive, from Deborah Harry and John Lennon to former president Jimmy Carter’s mother, Lillian, who gamely answered Ugly George when he asked her about the outcry over sex content on television. “Without batting an eyelash,” he recalls, “this [elderly] Southerner says, ‘Why, if it didn’t have any sex, it wouldn’t be any good, would it?’”

Such vintage clips, along with more recent street encounters with the likes of Arthur Miller (just before his death in 2005) and Tom Wolfe (just last fall) are the gems around which Ugly George plans to create a narrative setting for an eventual theatrical release. Though he was vague on the plot details, he described it as “an indictment of New York and phony liberalism.”

But why, at a time when most one-man-band content creators are looking to the Internet for fame and fortune, is Ugly George looking to the multiplex?

“I’m looking at all screens,” he said, though he admitted his Web presence—a bare-bones Website (www.uglygeorge.com) and a handful of clips posted to YouTube and elsewhere—leaves much to be desired. Pointing to his Panasonic, which he says has the ability to emulate film, he added, “Everything I’m doing now can be 28 feet across or 15 inches across or an inch and half across your cell phone. Finally, the long-awaited convergence.”

And he hasn’t ruled out a return to his roots on the small screen, this time “on a well-known telephone company that wants to offer its own public access channels” on a service that “begins with an F-word.”

A spokesperson for Verizon’s FiOS service seemed familiar with Ugly George but said only, “If he is looking for leased-access programming, obviously we’d provide anyone with that information. But I’m not aware of anything to that.”

Jan 12 2009 3:25AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (2) |

By Ben Grossman

Midway through the first day proper of CES (there were press events Wednesday), one thing has stood out so far: there are a lot less people here than I expected.  Not just people in the TV business, I mean people in general.

You realized it as soon as you got to Vegas, starting with the lack of winding cab lines at the airport typical of your CES arrival. 

When I checked into my hotel and told the staffer I had good news -- I would be leaving a night early and they could have my room -- she just laughed and said rooms weren't an issue like last year.  Someone else told me they got their hotel room for half the price of what they had originally booked it for. 

And then when the main halls opened at 10 a.m. Thursday and morning turned to afternoon, it was immediately evident how relatively easy it was just to get around, as opposed to the crushing crowds of last year.  Either this is a fashionably-late arriving crowd, or there are really fewer people here.

Pre-show numbers I believe talked of a drop in attendance of upper single digits percentage-wise, but I'll be surprised if that number holds up.

And the same goes for TV execs.  Last year I remember constantly bumping into people I know from the industry from network to studio people, many at a high level.  NBC even had executive meetings here.

This year, not so far.  Many execs I knew of who were planning on coming ended up staying home.  One of the few major media company chiefs in town said they were one of two people from their entire company here, and they were only in for a day trip.

Last year there was this sense of momentum that more and more programmers were going to be coming to CES from now on. 

Whether it is that coming to look at a bunch of fancy TVs isn't worth the trip after all or it's just the economy, stupid, clearly that momentum is on hold.

There are plenty of industry-related happenings here from keynotes to booths hosted by NBCU and Sony Pictures Television (including tapings of Jeopardy), but it is much quieter on that front than expected.

In fact, it is just much quieter, period.

Jan 8 2009 1:52PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

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By David Tanklefsky

It's no secret that DVR is systematically changing the way millions of Americans watch TV. But what is surprising, according to a recent Ipsos Mendelsohn poll, is the discrepancy in DVR ownership between affluent households and the rest of the country.

More than 63% of households with at least $100,000 total annual income (categorized as “affluent” by Ipsos Mendelsohn), own DVRs. That’s roughly 15 million households. By contrast, only about 19% of households making less than $100,000 a year own DVRs.

“I knew that it was going to be more than average,” said Richard Vogt, architect of the survey, referring to the greater number of high-income households owning DVRs. “If you factor it out, it is over three times as much. I’m not sure advertisers are aware that the market is being driven (as much) as it is by the affluent sector.”

The survey also looked at the attitudes and opinions of the affluent Americans polled in the study. It found that many are “early adopters” of new technology. They believe being on the cutting edge of new technologies is vital to their success. They often talk to others about their purchases offer advice about what to buy. If this is the case, DVR purchases among affluent Americans may be a harbinger of widespread purchasing by the middle-class.

“The youth market has always been looked to as the primary testing ground but I think looking at the affluent would be another testing ground, since they do have the means for purchasing new products such as DVR and services,” Vogt said.

Much like the iPod, Vogt believes that as the price point comes down, acceptance of DVRs among millions of non-affluent Americans will rise. This is the kind of bellwether news that likely makes advertisers quiver. Why? Research on the habits of DVR users clearly indicates that, when given the choice, most viewers will fast-forward through commercials.

As more and more viewers circumvent traditional commercials, Vogt believes more advertisers will be forced to work within the boundaries of DVR platforms. “Tivo has movie trailers at the bottom of the home screen,” said Vogt. “So there are opportunities there but they are opt-in. It’s very passive.”

Common logic assumes that these tough economic times would slow the rate of luxury purchases like DVRs but that may not be the case. The survey’s summary concludes that in less than certain times, Americans go out less. Thus, they are more likely to enjoy and invest in the pleasures of home, a concept known as “nesting.” Advertisers beware.

Jan 8 2009 7:47AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

Sunny days these are not, and everything is definitely not A-OK. What a perfect time then to ask that age-old question: "Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?"

And how fortunate that veteran journalist Michael Davis has come along just in time to provide the answer with Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street, published last week by Viking Press (www.streetgangthebook.com).

In Street Gang, Davis tells the story of how a simple question posed at a dinner party in 1965—"Do you think television could be used to teach small children?"—spawned a revolutionary effort to educate children by entertaining them with songs, vaudevillian skits and a cast of furry, feathery and shaggy puppets.

The book recounts the events that brought Joan Ganz Cooney, Jim Henson and the other Sesame principals together to form the Children's Television Workshop. And it's filled with wonderful birth moments leading up to the show's 1969 launch, such as the New York cab driver whose raspy "where to, Mac?" inspired the voice that puppeteer Caroll Spinney gave to Oscar the Grouch, or a scene in the rehearsal room where Henson and Frank Oz first pick up their respective alter egos, Ernie and Bert, and begin one of the most affectionate and enduring friendships on television.

Street Gang grew out of a 35th-anniversary profile Davis had written for TV Guide, where he was the family television columnist. "I kept hearing these incredible stories about the show and the people who made it," he tells B&C. "I realized that no one had really done the full book on Sesame."

Davis was particularly intrigued by Jon Stone, the show's writer, director and producer, and one of several Sesame Streeters who had previously worked on CBS' Captain Kangaroo.

"Jon Stone was the Orson Welles of Sesame Street," Davis says. "A big guy, big personality. It was his taste, his ideas and his vision that gave [the show] its soul."

Indeed, it was Stone who proposed the show's urban setting with its brownstone stoops and trash cans after seeing a 1968 PSA urging support for inner-city kids.

Stone died of ALS in 1997, but he had written an unpublished memoir that Davis got his hands on and quoted from at length with the blessing of Stone's family (including former wife Beverly Owens, who played Marilyn on the first season of The Munsters).

For Davis, the magic of the show and Stone's role in creating it were most evident in the 1978 holiday special Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, in which Oscar mocks Big Bird's belief in Santa Claus as only Oscar can. ("How's a guy like Santa Claus--who's built like a dumptruck--how's he gonna fit down all those skinny chimneys?")

Unlike the usual holiday special, says Davis, "there's nothing treacle-y or saccharine about it." It exemplifies "what made the Muppets what they are," he adds: "a marriage of writing and performance" that manages to convey the sense that these puppets have an interior life.

"Oscar is basically a piece of shag carpet and ping pong balls for eyes," Davis laughs. But when Maria (Sonia Manzano) scolds him for teasing Big Bird, "Caroll Spinney makes him look chagrined, embarrassed and stunned."

And Davis confesses to tearing up during Ernie and Bert's duet on "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," knowing that Henson's death in 1990 from a respiratory infection means that "there will never be another [perfect pair like] Frank and Jim again." (Watch the clip below.)

Although he says it was hard to let go of the project, having grown so attached to all the people involved, Davis believes the timing couldn't be better to tell the tale of how we got to Sesame Street.

"I really believe Sesame Street ushered in the age of Obama," he says, noting the way it showcased diversity and tolerance, and grew out of an idealistic sense of social justice. And after all, he adds, "Gordon [a pillar of the Sesame neighborhood] is, in a way, a community organizer."

Asked if he has a favorite Sesame character, Davis cites his characteristic "second-born child" eagerness to please—along with his own failed stint as a waiter—as evidence of his affinity for the blue, lanky and lovable Grover.

Who's your favorite Sesame Street resident? Scroll down to add a comment and let us know.

And if you're in New York on Monday, Jan. 5, check out Davis' appearance at the Lincoln Square Barnes & Noble on Broadway and W. 66th St.

VIDEO: Ernie and Burt duet on "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas":

Jan 5 2009 12:00AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

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Like the rest of you I just endured a week of “Stormwatch ‘08” and this time, rather than simply being bothered by how pointless the video footage was, I did the constructive thing and tried to think of some new or at least money saving ideas to cover massive snowstorms.

Here are the ones I saw on Stormwatch—again—that I think should be retired:

Talking to one disgruntled and one still-cheerful passenger at the snowed-in airport

• Going to a hardware store to document the lack of snow shovels
• Leaning into a car going nowhere and asking how bad the road conditions are
• Interviewing Christmas shoppers while the equivalent of a jet turbine blows snow in their faces.
• Skipping the middleman and being the station’s snow guinea pig, but this time, you have the yardstick!
• Talking to the sanitation chief about the city’s supply of rock salt and available drivers. 
• And don't forget this chestnut: Watching kids sled or build a snowman

Truthfully, if stations want to save some money this year, I suggest this: Use file footage. One car from 2008 skidding into a guardrail is not much different than the car that did the same dance in 2004. You’re not actually documenting an accident. You’re illustrating a condition.

Kids have shoveled out neighborhood cars for years. You spent a fortune on archival capacity for your newsroom. And you did this story in 2006! Use it again. Just edit out the reporter you have since laid off.

Okay, now for some new ideas:

• You know those exhibitionists who massively over-decorate their front yards for the pleasure of causing traffic jams on their streets? During a very windy storm, take a drive to visit them. I would suppose many of them are frantically trying to save overlit, unstable stuff from blowing away. A great Christmas story, and by doing it, others will decide not to decorate their homes like that next year. That’s worth an award from the NAB. 
• What is it with rock salt? Surely, any science teacher could tell you but I don’t know why it works. Assignment: Ask any science teacher why rock salt works. If you get an answer, it’s a story all in itself. Kinda offbeat. If you can’t get an answer from several science teachers in your district, it’s an I-Team probe, once you actually get the answer somewhere. Who wants to miss the heavily-promoted  “Is Our Anchor Smarter Than A Sixth Grade Teacher?”
• How fast can you go and come to a safe stop on slippery roads? This will take a stunt driver, or per diem employee, and the right street somewhere, but this is the kind of stuff that made David Blaine, and to some extent Geraldo Rivera, famous. 

Truthfully, it would be tough to be the assignment editor for a newscast looking for fresh ways to cover old snow. If you have any new tricks, write back. I know doing these stories are a pain. One winter while working at the Sun-Times  in Chicago, I had a veteran city editor who battled a managing editor newly arrived from some less frigid clime, and the city editor always found himself whining, “But Julia, it’s Chicago. It’s winter. It snows. It’s not news.”

The next day, invariably, it was on page one.

Dec 30 2008 12:33PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

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That the Iraq War is no longer a high priority for TV news divisions is obvious -- if not merely in the amount of personnel and program minutes dedicated to a conflict that still involves 130,000 U.S. troops, then in how much network executives are willing to talk about their coverage on the record.

On the evening newscasts at ABC, CBS and NBC, where the bulk of the broadcast networks’ Iraq coverage is placed, program minutes dedicated to Iraq seem commensurate with the military death toll: 1,888 minutes in 2007 and just over 400 minutes in 2008, according to news analyst Andrew Tyndall. The U.S military sustained 303 casualties in 2008, according to GlobalSecurity.org. That is less than half the yearly casualties of 2004 through 2007, which was the deadliest year on record with nearly 900 service men and women killed. Baghdad bureaus, in turn, have been reduced to skeletal levels.

In Brian Stelter’s diligent report in Monday’s New York Times about the severe media drawdown in Iraq, none of the executives at the broadcast networks would talk to Stelter on the record.

"ABC, CBS and NBC declined to speak on the record about their news coverage decisions," writes Stelter. "But representatives for the networks emphasized that they would continue to cover the war and said the staff adjustments reflected the evolution of the conflict in Iraq from a story primarily about violence to one about reconstruction and politics.”

In the summer of 2007, when I wrote about the financial and personal burdens of covering Iraq – the deadliest conflict ever for journalists – executives and correspondents at all three networks spoke on the record about the challenges they faced in Iraq. Then, running a fully staffed bureau was costing them about $7 million a year, a disproportionate amount of that going toward hiring heavily armed security to protect their employees. I spent nearly an hour on the phone with CBS News’ chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan, who was in Baghdad at the time. NBC’s Richard Engel and ABC’s Terry McCarthy also spoke candidly about the dangers of covering a story where western journalists had become targets.

A year and a half and a presidential election later, Iraq is still costing U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars each month. But you will find few, if any famous faces reporting from Baghdad. 

The American television media has collectively relegated the war to the occasional standup. Viewers now get the view from 30,000 feet, hung on video from foreign sources with little context. It is a vicious circle, a symptom of the industry’s shift from a public service-driven to a ratings-driven mission, to be sure. And the recent financial crisis has only accelerated the contraction. 

There are exceptions. And yes, newsgathering has changed and evolved. Foreign partnerships, pooling agreements and one-man band correspondents can punch the ticket at global hot-spots. But it’s hard to find the kind of human interest stories that viewers respond to when your mandate is simply to plant the flag with a drive-by report. 

Has substantive foreign news become a luxury many news organizations have decided they can ill afford? Perhaps. But, it seems, it is corporate heresy to say so.

Dec 29 2008 1:46PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

Have you heard of Mae Laborde? No? Well, you’ve probably seen her, at least if you have been watching Fox or cable sibling FX.

 Laborde may be best known for her hilarious take on the DTV transition for a sketch on Talkshow with Spike Feresten that went viral (below), but the 98(!) year old actress has been appearing all over the tube.

 

 As the AP reports, Mae played Vanna White 40 years in the future on MadTV and came face to face with the grim reaper on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. As usual, Mae stole the scene. She has appeared on a number of other sketches on Talkshow as well, so be sure to check those out.

 Probably the most interesting about her though is the fact that she didn’t even get into the acting business until she was 93. I doubt there are any many others actors that can say that.

 What made me think to write about her though was her appearance on FX comedy It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia:

  

 As usual, Mae stole the scene, and it shows that the material, be it tame or raunchy (and believe me, It’s Always Sunny is raunchy) Mae is down for the role.

Dec 29 2008 1:23PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

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By Claire Atkinson, Business Editor, B&C

NBC Universal's Jeff Zucker was pretty candid in his "network-model-is-broken" interviews last week. The only thing lacking were the statistics to show how bad things have got.

This week General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt delivered those cold hard figures in the annual outlook investor meeting at 30 Rock, from Saturday Night Live's Studio 8-H.

Immelt's presentation featured a stunning PowerPoint slide. Earnings at the broadcast unit—which includes the stations as well as the network—were just $400 million in 2008. That's down from $1.4 billion in 2005, a whopping 33 percent drop in the compound annual growth rate (CAGR), which tracks year-over-year growth over a period of time. And that's before this recession really bites down.

The same slide, meanwhile, showed the cable unit's comet-like performance. Over the same three year period, the unit boosted earnings by almost $1 billion, from $1.3 billion to $2.1 billion, a 20 % increase in the CAGR. Goodbye, old media; hello, dual revenue streams!

NBCU parent GE said Tuesday it would no longer give quarterly guidance on earnings. It's easy to see why. Immelt added: "For people of my generation, this is the toughest environment we've ever seen."

Dec 18 2008 9:42AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

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The second season premiere of Flight of the Conchords made its debut on Funny or Die, well in advance of its January 18 premiere on HBO. By launching it a month early online, HBO can build buzz around the show, as well as some other upcoming properties.

 

 If you check out the premiere episode (embedded below for your enjoyment, you can also go here) you will see that it also includes a sneak preview of the upcoming HBO comedy, Eastbound & Down.

 

The executive producers of Eastbound & Down? Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, who also happen to be involved, in wait for it… Funny or Die.

 

For background, HBO has a partial stake in Funny or Die, a deal that includes the possibility of developing network shows using the brand’s name or talent developed on the site. It also has a development deal with Jackhole Productions, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s production company.

 

Check out Flight of the Conchords (and the preview for Eastbound & Down) below.

Dec 18 2008 10:27AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

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