>>> Aaron Barnhart's TVBARN.COM

Here are the spring 1999 ratings for the Kansas City market among listeners ages 12+, according to Arbitron (winter 1999 ratings in parentheses):

All-day (Mon-Sun 6 a.m.-midnight)
1. KMXV-FM (93.3), 8.5 share (5.7)
2. KQRC-FM (98.9), 7.4 (6.1)
3. KPRS-FM (103.3), 6.3 (7.5)
4. WDAF-AM (610), 6.2 (7.1)
5. KMBZ-AM (980), 6.1 (5.9)
6. KUDL-FM (98.1), 5.4 (5.4)
7. KCFX-FM (101.1), 4.9 (4.6)
8. (tie) KFKF-FM (94.1), 4.6 (6.8)
8. (tie) KCMO-FM (94.9), 4.6 (4.3)
10. (tie) KYYS-FM (99.7), 4.4 (4.5)
10. (tie) KBEQ-FM (104.3), 4.4 (4.4)
12. KCIY-FM (106.5), 3.8 (3.3)
13. KXTR-FM (96.5), 3.6* (3.3)
14. KCMO-AM (710), 3.4 (2.9)
15. KSRC-FM (102.1), 3.3 (3.4)
16. KCHZ-FM (95.7), 3.1 (2.4)
17. KNRX-FM (107.3), 2.6 (2.8)
18. KLZR-FM (105.9), 1.7 (1.3)
19. KPRT-AM (1590), 1.6 (1.9)
20. KCTE-AM (1510), 1.5 (2.2)
21. KFEZ-AM (1340), 0.9 (1.2)
22. KPHN-AM (1190), 0.7 (N/A) * KXTR-FM was simulcast on KUPN-AM (1480). KUPN has since been sold to HME Communications of Fayetteville, Ark.

NOTE: One share point represents one percent of listeners (persons using radio) during the average quarter-hour. Spring 1999 covers the period April 1-June 30.
These stations are non-commercial and non-rated: KCUR-FM (89.3), KKFI-FM (90.1), KLJC-FM (88.5), KRBW-FM (90.5), KWJC-FM (91.9)

Morning drive (6-10 a.m.) (winter 1999 share in parentheses)
1. KQRC, Johnny Dare and Murphy Wells, 9.2 (7.4)
2. WDAF, David Lawrence, 8.1 (10.4)
3. KMXV, Mike Kennedy and Nycki Pace, 6.8 (4.9)
4. KUDL, Dan Hurst and Glo Goodwin, 6.0 (5.5)
5. (tie) KMBZ, Noel Heckerson and Ellen Schenk, 5.9 (6.5)
5. (tie) KBEQ, Randy Miller, 5.9 (5.6)
7. KFKF, Dale Carter and Mary McKenna, 5.5 (6.7)
8. KPRS-FM, Sonny Andre and Myron D, 5.3 (6.9)
9. KYYS, Max Floyd, Larry Moffitt and Tanna Guthrie, 4.8 (4.9)
10. KCMO-AM, Mike Murphy, 4.2 (3.1)
Afternoon drive (3-7 p.m.)
1. KMXV, Kelly Urich, 9.2 (6.1)
2. KQRC, Valorie Knight, 7.2 (6.1)
3. KPRS-FM, Lauryn Nicole, 6.1 (6.9)
4. KCMO-FM, "Katfish" Kris Kelly, 5.6 (4.5)
5. KUDL, Sheral Collins, 5.1 (5.3)
6. KMBZ, Don Fortune and Soren Petro, 5.0 (4.8)
7. KCFX, Scott Johnson, 4.7 (5.2)
8. KYYS, Marty Wall, 4.6 (5.1)
9 (tie). KFKF, Mark McKay, 4.5 (7.2)
9 (tie). KBEQ, T.J. McEntire, 4.5 (4.7)


>>> Aaron Barnhart's TVBARN.COM

Here are the summer 1999 ratings for the Kansas City market among listeners ages 12+, according to Arbitron (spring 1999 ratings in parentheses):

All-day (Mon-Sun 6 a.m.-midnight)
1. KMXV-FM (93.3), 7.2 share (8.5)
2. KQRC-FM (98.9), 6.8 (7.4)
3. KBEQ-FM (104.3), 6.6 (4.4)
4. WDAF-AM (610), 6.5 (6.2)
5. KPRS-FM (103.3), 6.3 (6.3)
6. KMBZ-AM (980), 5.4 (6.1)
7. KFKF-FM (94.1), 5.2 (4.6)
8. KYYS-FM (99.7), 5.0 (4.4)
9. KCMO-FM (94.9), 5.0 (4.6)
10. KUDL-FM (98.1), 4.8 (5.4)
11. KCFX-FM (101.1), 4.3 (4.9)
12. KNRX-FM (107.3), 3.6 (2.6)
13. KSRC-FM (102.1), 3.5 (3.3)
14. KCIY-FM (106.5), 3.4 (3.8)
15. (tie) KXTR-FM (96.5), 3.0 (3.6)
15. (tie) KCMO-AM (710), 3.0 (3.4)
17. KCHZ-FM (95.7), 2.8 (3.1)
18. KCTE-AM (1510), 1.9 (1.5)
19. KLZR-FM (105.9), 1.4 (1.7)
20. KPRT-AM (1590), 1.2 (1.6)
21. KPHN-AM (1190), 0.9 (0.7) 22. KCCV-FM, 0.7 (NA)

NOTE: One share point represents one percent of listeners (persons using radio) during the average quarter-hour. Spring 1999 covers the period July-Sept.
These stations are non-commercial and non-rated: KCUR-FM (89.3), KKFI-FM (90.1), KLJC-FM (88.5), KRBW-FM (90.5), KWJC-FM (91.9)

Morning drive (Monday-Friday, 6-10 a.m.) (spring 1999 share in parentheses)
1. WDAF, David Lawrence, 9.5 (8.1)
2. KQRC, Johnny Dare and Murphy Wells, 9.3 (9.2)
3. KBEQ, Randy Miller, 6.7 (5.9)
4. KFKF, Dale Carter and Mary McKenna, 6.2 (5.5)
5. KYYS, Max Floyd, Larry Moffitt and Tanna Guthrie, 6.0 (4.8)
6. KPRS-FM, Sonny Andre and Myron D, 5.8 (5.3)
7. KMXV, 5.4 (6.8)
8. (tie) KMBZ, Noel Heckerson and Ellen Schenk, 4.5 (5.9)
8. (tie) KCMO-FM, Dick Wilson, 4.5 (NA)
10. KUDL, Dan Hurst and Glo Goodwin, 4.4 (6.0)
Afternoon drive (Monday-Friday, 3-7 p.m.)
1. KMXV, Kelly Urich, 8.0 (9.2)
2. KBEQ, Shotgun Jeff Jaxon, 6.8 (4.5)
3. KQRC, Valorie Knight, 6.5 (7.2)
4. KPRS-FM, Lauryn Nicole, 5.5 (6.1)
5. KFKF, Mark McKay, 5.4 (4.5)
6. KYYS, Marty Wall, 5.1 (4.6)
7. KUDL, Sheral Collins, 5.0 (5.1)
8. KCMO-FM, "Katfish" Kris Kelly, 4.8 (5.6)
9. (tie) KMBZ, Don Fortune and Soren Petro, 4.7 (5.0)
9. (tie) WDAF, Dan Roberts/Bruce Efron, 4.7 (NA)

>>> Aaron Barnhart's TVBARN.COM

Here are the winter 1999 ratings for the Kansas City market among listeners ages 12+, according to Arbitron:

All-day (Mon-Sun 6 a.m.-midnight)
1. KPRS-FM (103.3), 7.5 share
2. WDAF-AM (610), 7.1
3. KFKF-FM (94.1), 6.8
4. KQRC-FM (98.9), 6.1
5. KMBZ-AM (980), 5.9
6. KMXV-FM (93.3), 5.7
7. KUDL-FM (98.1), 5.4
8. KCFX-FM (101.1), 4.6
9. KYYS-FM (99.7), 4.5
10. KBEQ-FM (104.3), 4.4
11. KCMO-FM (94.9), 4.3
12. KSRC-FM (102.1), 3.4
13. KCIY-FM (106.5), 3.3 (tie)
13. KXTR-FM (96.5), 3.3 (tie)
15. KCMO-AM (710), 2.9
16. KNRX-FM (107.3), 2.8
17. KCHZ-FM (95.7), 2.4
18. KCTE-AM (1510), 2.2
19. KPRT-AM (1590), 1.9
20. KLZR-FM (105.9), 1.3
21. KFEZ-AM (1340), 1.2

NOTE: One share point represents one percent of listeners (persons using radio) during the average quarter-hour. Winter 1999 covers the period Jan. 7-Mar. 31.
These stations are non-commercial and non-rated: KCUR-FM (89.3), KKFI-FM (90.1), KLJC-FM (88.5), KRBW-FM (90.5), KWJC-FM (91.9)

Morning drive (6-10 a.m.)
1. WDAF, David Lawrence, 10.4 share
2. KQRC, Johnny Dare and Murphy Wells, 7.4
3. KPRS-FM, Sonny Andre and Myron D, 6.9
4. KFKF, Dale Carter and Mary McKenna, 6.7
5. KMBZ, Noel Heckerson and Ellen Schenk, 6.5
6. KBEQ, Randy Miller, 5.6
7. KUDL, Dan Hurst and Glo Goodwin, 5.5
8. KMXV, Denis Prior, 4.9 (tie)
8. KYYS, Max Floyd, Larry Moffitt and Tanna Guthrie, 4.9 (tie)
10. KCFX, Rick Tamblyn, T.J. Price and Karen Barber, 3.8 (tie)
10. KCMO-FM, Dick Wilson, Katey McGuckin and Teri Wilder, 3.8 (tie)
12. KSRC, 3.3
13. KCMO-AM, 3.1
14. KCIY, 2.6
15. KXTR, 2.4 (tie)
15. KPRT-AM, 2.4 (tie) Afternoon drive (3-7 p.m.)
1. KFKF, 7.2
2. KPRS-FM, 6.9
3. KQRC, 6.1
4. KMBZ, 4.8
5. KUDL, 5.3
6. KCFX, 5.2
7. KYYS, 5.1
8. WDAF, 4.8 (tie)
8. KMBZ, 4.8 (tie)
10. KBEQ, 4.7
11. KCMO-FM, 4.5
12. KCTE-AM, 4.2
13. KSRC, 3.7
14. KCIY, 3.4
15. KNRX, 3.0 "http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/loose.dtd">

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"Survivor": The Tiger of the Eye When CBS announced last year that it had acquired the U.S. rights to an adventure game known in Sweden as "Expedition Robinson," jaded TV critics immediately assumed the network was just trying to capitalize on the unexpected success of ABC's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." Little did we know at the time that "Survivor," as the show was renamed here, would establish itself as a ratings terror and social phenomenon in its own right. That instead of "final answer," we'd be haunted by refrains of "The tribe has spoken." That we would spend so darned much time discussing the fat, balding corporate trainer, the Teflon-coated YMCA instructor or the truck driver with the atrocious spelling. Certainly TV Barn didn't. But now that we've gone on -- and on -- about "Survivor," it's only right that we assemble all the gossip and spoilers from Survivor Isle, not to mention unsavory news about the survivors' real lives, into one easy-to-get-lost-in place. So here it is. Stay as long as you like, but please don't ask for food or soap. Pre-"Survivor": Search TV Barn

this site www.searchbutton.com the web www.goto.com

Copyright © 2000 Aaron Barnhart
Redistribution prohibited. Magnolia (1999) "stars-3-2.gif"
New Line Home Video
Full IMDb listing by ANDY IHNATKO It's a massive, magnificent fractal curve of a movie. You know it's beautiful with your first surface glance. And then you sense a complexity lurking underneath somewhere, and you're compelled to examine it more closely. But when you zoom in and start looking at its details, you only see more texture and more details. And yet, at each and every level you see echoes of the simple beauty that drew you in in the first place and get a sense that it penetrates far deeper than you'll ever really appreciate. Good God, what a movie. Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia" is all about the impossibility of living up to your self-image. It's about loneliness. It's about confronting the certainty of your death. It's about how you can live your entire life during a single, numb moment when you're just staring into space. It's about The Moment of Truth. It's about parents and children. It's about television. It's about miracles actually happening. It's about the endless opportunities for success and redemption. It's about love and it's about faith and it's about regret. To quote "Bull Durham": We're dealing with a lot of s***, here. "Magnolia" is what I call a "Shred Film." This is where you take several small-scale, unrelated stories, shred them to bits, and then edit them all together and fill up the running length of a feature film. A typical traditional movie is about is about the beginning, complication, and resolution of a relationship between two people, usually Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. A Shred Film is just about that one twenty-minute scene they have at the coffee shop, only you also learn about the mechanic who fixed Hanks' car that morning, the fight between the gay couple that owns the coffeeshop, the elderly man who lives next-door to the gay couple, and so on. Taking all factors into consideration, the Snuff Film remains the single riskiest form of storytelling. But the Shred Film isn't far behind. How can you possibly make this sort of thing work? You've precious little time to spend on each story and just as you're building momentum, you have to switch to another one. The big failures wind up looking like an episode of "The Love Boat," with flat, uninvolving stories that only perk up during those brief moments of novelty when stories overlap. Robert Altman's "Short Cuts" — there, I mentioned Robert Altman in a review of Magnolia; if you had "Paragraph Seven" in the pool, you're now one step closer to winning that 2001 Mercury Sable — did a fair job. It was entertaining enough, but during the drive home from the theater it started to dawn on me that I was more entertained by the novelty of the movie than the movie itself. "Magnolia" is a success thanks to Anderson's awareness of Shred's limitations. Without the luxury of time and plot development, the stories have to be carried by characterization. This calls for both colorful, easily grasped characters and damned great performances and "Magnolia"'s are unassailable: Jason Robards is a TV producer in the final stages of cancer. He reported to the set shortly after recovering from a nine-week coma during which he lost fifty pounds, so physically and emotionally his performance is almost uncomfortably good. Julianne Moore is his young wife, looking for the courage to cope and finding it in odd places. Tom Cruise is sort of the Andrew Dice Clay of infomercial self-help gurus. John C. Reilly is definitely a Loner Cop, but not in that cool Clint Eastwood way. Philip Baker Hall is the host of a long-running kids' quiz show. Jeremy Blackman is the show's current champion, while William H. Macy was a winning contestant thirty years ago. He's managed to build upon and surpass his childhood success so well that today he's a grown man whom everyone still refers to as "Quiz Kid Donnie Smith." These and other characters follow the Shred Film path of a moderately ordinary day with random intersections. But the execution is singularly successful. I don't think there's another film I've enjoyed more than "Magnolia." I sat there with an enormous grin, totally aware that I was witnessing a compelling standalone explanation of why the humans bothered to invent film in the first place and why the artform should be spared after the alien holocaust. But after about two and a half hours, I was also totally aware that I'd been sitting there for at least four hours. It's long: over three hours and fifteen minutes. A little voice keeps reminding me of Roger Ebert's comment about the running length of films: that good films are never long enough and bad ones are never short enough. Then another voice tells the first one that it's being a total sissy and that the running length shouldn't cause me to dismiss "Magnolia." What Ebert said is very, very true. But when a movie puts the utterly impossible on the screen — and "Magnolia" does that three or four times, as when all the characters start humming along with the song on the soundtrack, wherever they are — and you simply buy into it without a single blip, you can't deny that this picture simply Works. Besides, it's easy to see where some cuts should have been made. The film is framed with quasi-archival news footage and a repetitive and obsessive verbal essay (narrated by magician Ricky Jay) on the subject of the nature of The Coincidence and The Miraculous. This is meant to help underscore and set us up for the various Incidents and Intersections that take place in the film. But it's a waste of time and self-defeating besides. Ricky Jay is probably the most talented card magician of our day. He certainly wouldn't take the stage and start off by explaining "Look, folks, I'm going to do some card tricks; sometimes, I'm going to palm cards, other times I'm going to make you look at one hand while I'm doing something sneaky with the other.." et cetera. We, the audience, understand the basic concept, and even if we don't specifically know about the Svengali Drop, we can follow what's going on. It's vaguely offensive to have all of this laboriously explained at the outset. Maybe Paul Thomas Anderson is offending the audience by suggesting that we're too slow on the uptake. Maybe he's offending the film by showing such a lack of faith in his material's ability to stand on its own. And the foreword planted a popcorn husk between my teeth and gums that kept me partially distracted throughout the whole last half of the film. If the opening scene in a film is of someone dramatically placing a gun in a desk drawer, you just can't help but wonder when that gun is going to come into play. And the longer you're left wondering, the worse it gets. "Magnolia" doesn't need explanation or cheap gimmicks thanks to its construction. On first viewing, it's a great storytelling experience. On second viewing, you sense that the characters aren't merely leading intersecting lives but lives that are actually parallel. And after the third or fourth you recognize that this is chiefly because all of these characters are leading our lives, wandering across hills and valleys that are universal, differing only in what sort of time you're making as you go. And you will see "Magnolia" over and over again, which is the highest praise you can give a film. You can see whatever you want in "Magnolia" but in the end, what you see will be pretty damned familiar.
The DVD Features widescreen aspect ratio, scene selection; original trailers and TV ads; English subtitles. Music video for Aimee Mann's "Save Me," which is a real pipperoo because it features all-original footage with the entire cast and sets. Picture is dazzling. Superior cinematography with the full palette of light used to maximum impact. If you don't understand why you should have bought a Trinitron, try to adjust your Quasar set to show off all of the shadow details here. Sound is — oddly enough for a dramatic movie — just as vital as the picture and given the same amount of lavish attention. Chiefly this is through music. This disc is definitely worth playing in the good room with the nicely-tuned speaker system. Dolby 5.1 and 2.0 audio. Behind-The-Scenes Documentary is sort of a 70-minute video production diary. A definite step below a proper "making of" documentary but well above the standard of a make-work project directors assign to their mistresses as an excuse to keep them around on the set. A nice, meaty mix of talks with the director, rehearsals, and behind-the-scenes details of the shoot. Deleted scenes are valuable, even if they consist exclusively of Tom Cruise's infomercial seminar. One shudders to think that "Magnolia" could have been made even longer, but the truth is that these scenes are the equal of anything that made the final cut. Outtakes are Easter Eggs hidden in the one place on the Supplemental disc that you'd be least likely to explore. Some bloopers, some giggling, some practical jokes and goofing around during takes. DVD-ROM content is Windows-only, and if the producers couldn't be bothered to create content that was worth viewing on a Macintosh then the content can't possibly be worth my going to any extra trouble to . New Line Home Video Cat. # N5029
Copyright ©2000 Andy Ihnatko. May not be redistributed without permission. Studio PR types wishing to send Andy tapes, promotional clothing, or high-end video gear in hopes of securing a positive review are advised that such efforts are futile, but they're free to try to determine how high Andy's price actually is. Mail any and all pelft to Box 279, Norwood, MA 02062. He already has a subwoofer for his home-theater but could probably use a good pair of casual slacks.

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The TV Critic's Toolbox "You've got the best job," people always tell me. "You get paid just to sit around and watch TV." Would that it were so easy for the average TV critic. The industry is going through unprecedented economic and technological upheaval. And it's our job to try to make sense of all the changes and explain them to our readers. There are more than 200 broadcast and cable networks now in service. Many but by no means all of them are probably on your local cable system. This increase in channel capacity has fueled a huge demand for fresh programming. Most cable channels no longer subsist on diets of old movies, reruns and el cheapo talk shows. And that is the primary reason why the old broadcast paradigm has shifted -- or rather, buckled violently and collapsed in a heap of rubble. Think about it: Today three cable entities -- ESPN, Turner and Fox -- are calling most of the shots in the lucrative market of sports television. CNN is considered a more trustworthy news source by Americans than any broadcast or print outlet. Then there's technology. One out of nine homes has a satellite dish, in near-defiance of the TV stations in their communities. In response, the cable industry is converting to a digital standard that will multiply consumer choices. Plus don't look now, but here comes the Internet. Now try covering all that while trying to figure out whether "Freaks and Geeks" should live or die. Not as easy as it looks. I'm up to the challenge, but the truth is that all of us, to some degree, need to be TV critics. That's why I've assembled The TV Critic's Toolbox, a set of resources ordinary viewers can use to learn more about the TV industry and the programs it chooses to offer on commercial television. So that the next time you or your kids are watching a formulaic sitcom or a cynical action show or a newscast from hell, you won't just take it sitting down.

TV violence: What you should know

Television violence is the single most preventable public health hazard there is. It is ubiquitous, and yet all but a small fraction of American parents tolerate the amount of violent TV piped into their houses because they assume there's nothing to be done about it. So they rationalize, thinking, "It can't be that bad -- after all, it was violent when I grew up." Well, no offense, but it's not exactly the streets of Oslo in American's cities and suburbs. Violence is a serious public health matter. And there is no more demonstrable link in all of modern psychology than the one between TV violence and aggressive behavior in children. Turn it off, and the kids will tone it down. It's that simple. But don't take my word for it. Read some of the stories I've reported, read some specialists like those listed below, and then decide for yourself. Then go out and buy that new TV set with the V-chip inside. (All sets made in 2000 will have them, even though the electronics industry has done jack to promote this fact.) It's a simple, elegantly designed filter, it really works, and you can begin using it tonight. TV industry under increasing pressure to reduce violent programming -- Kansas City Star, May 10, 1999 The V-chip: It actually works -- TV Barn, Aug. 9, 1999 Giving the V-chip a chance -- TV Barn, June 28, 1999 TV ratings still flawed, survey finds -- Kansas City Star, May 28, 1998 TV ratings headed for rewrite -- Kansas City Star, June 25, 1997 The V-chip is about technology, not censorship -- Kansas City Star, March 22, 1997 Other sources Children Now conducts insightful media-literacy studies; a May 1998 study found that kids associate white TV characters with positive traits like intelligence, good grades and leadership, while minority TV characters were associated with laziness, goofiness, and breaking the law. Here's the official V-chip page of the Federal Communications Commission. The Center for Media Education's V-chip education page. Also, let me direct your attention to two authorities on the effects of violent media: See No Evil: A Guide to Protecting Our Children from Media Violence
by Madeline Levine (Jossey-Bass, 1998) Clinical psychologist Madeline Levine is the most persuasive and authentic expert I have ever read on the topic of the media's effects on young children. Levine connects all the dots. She explains the psychological challenges faced by kids at every stage of development -- early, middle and older childhood and into adolescence -- and how at each stage they are vulnerable to certain messages conveyed to them by TV and movies. She explains why shows like "Party of Five" and "Home Improvement" are responsible choices and why many shows aimed at the very youngest viewers aren't. And she does it all in beautiful prose that will make her arguments resound even more deeply with readers. She would make an excellent cultural critic; her discursus on Jodie Foster in the film Contact on page 176 is moving and wise. See No Evil is more than a treatise. It's a resource for parents who don't want to pull their kids out of the mainstream culture but need help navigating them through the endless array of entertainment choices. As Levine writes in her introduction, "Since all passion inevitably flows from personal commitment, I have written this book because I do not want my three sons growing up in a society that routinely glorifies violence and denies social responsibility." Another book of hers, Viewing Violence, is also useful. How to Talk Back to Your Television Set
by Nicholas Johnson (Little Brown, 1970)
Full text of book online "Despised by broadcasters and hailed by consumer advocates, Nicholas Johnson's 1966-1973 tenure at the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) was described as the most controversial in the history of the commission ..." How did this mild-mannered Iowan with no communications background earn himself this singular honor? Among other things, he single-handedly fought the notorious proposed merger of ABC and ITT (which was eventually scrapped), rebuked his fellow commissioners for not enforcing the agency's rules on public-service obligations and in general presented a side of the FCC not often seen -- as the New York Times would put it, "as public defender instead of industry apologist." Prophetically, Advertising Age observed that "if diversity of viewpoint is important, the long-range danger at the FCC may be from lack of advocates like Nick Johnson," and indeed in the quarter-century since his service, few if any commissioners have dared to raise the hackles of the broadcasting industry, now considered the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill and the recent recipient of billions of dollars in free broadcast spectrum. (Here's a complete description of Johnson's tenure at the FCC from a 1996 paper.) What's cheering about the Nick Johnson story is that it doesn't end in 1973. Instead of sticking around in Washington and working the revolving door for fame and fortune, Johnson returned to Iowa after his FCC term ended, took a faculty position as a law professor and continued to offer his views on matters of public import -- not just on radio and TV issues but education, cyberspace, and communications policy around the world. His Web page contains a vast bibliography, which he updates constantly, of articles, speeches, letters-to-the-editor, you name it (e.g., "All-Day Kindergarten: Sorting Through the Pros and Cons"). Johnson's work on media literacy is an essential addition to the TV Critic's Toolbox. Among other pieces is this recent article on media literacy. And although I didn't know it at the time I started using the phrase, Johnson wrote a book (see link above) entitled, "How to Talk Back to Your TV Set," in 1970. A World Split Apart
Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Address at Harvard University
June 8, 1978 "The fight for our planet, physical and spiritual, a fight of cosmic proportions, is not a vague matter of the future; it has already started. ... And yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?" The heroic Russian emigre had only been in the U.S. four years when he delivered this concussion to a complacent West. The Harvard address marked the end of Solzhenitsyn's honeymoon with Western culture; after it, only political conservatives continued to take him seriously. But read Solzhenitsyn's speech today through the lens of the modern mediascope, which is now dominated by corporations that can barely be distinguished from the public institutions that regulate them. The old shaggy novelist's warnings, especially about "the press" (as he called the media), still hold up. The themes of the Harvard address are broad and abstract: Courage. Willpower. Moral fortitude. Spirituality. What do these have to do with television? They are all themes that are either underplayed or misrepresented by our most mass medium. The satirist Ken Finkleman once observed that television is only interested in telling about five or six stories about people, over and over and over again. That's because they're tried and true in getting viewers to watch. Though Solzhenitsyn is harsh toward TV and modern music, I don't think his comments on mass media should simply be taken at face value. Mass media is a communications device, and though imperfect (mainly because of its rampant commercialism) it does routinely convey the agenda of Americans in their public life as well as in their copious leisure time. The media is a mirror of the Western mindset; the Harvard address was an attempt to hold a mirror up to that mirror and show what an uninspiring a view of our culture that is. The solution is not to get rid of television, but "to rise to a new height of vision."

Books about TV

Below are listed some books and several websites I've found helpful in my own work. Clicking on any of the book covers or titles will take you to powells.com for ordering.

Reference:

The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946-Present (7th Ed, Revised)
by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh (Ballantine, 2000) Total Television: The Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present (4th Ed)
by Alex McNeil (Penguin, 1996) I rely on these two sources nearly every day. Brooks and Marsh have the better format, McNeil has more shows (because he covers all dayparts, not just prime time). Brooks and Marsh are especially good at dissecting the most popular formats and identifying copycats of more successful shows. Both men have backgrounds in number-crunching; Brooks was the top researcher at USA Networks for many years and one of the smartest people I know in TV when it comes to seeing the big picture. The 2000 edition contains substantially more cable listings than the 1995 edition. McNeil's book comes with a multimedia CD-ROM; unfortunately it's for Wintel PC's only, so I can't view it on my Macintosh.
Broadcast/Cable Programming: Strategies and Practices
by Susan Tyler Eastman and Douglas A. Ferguson (Walsworth, 1997) For people serious about understanding how the industry works, this textbook (pricey at $67) is a worthwhile investment. I bought Broadcast/Cable Programming when I was hired by The Kansas City Star and have relied on it ever since. Like all textbooks, it'll be revised soon, but you'll find the information inside this 1997 edition very up-to-date. This book will explain perhaps more than you care to know about the way TV station managers, program sales reps and program creators view America's favorite medium. TV is a tough, bottom-line-fixated business; what you think of as "shows," they think of as "product." Ratings Analysis : The Theory and Practice of Audience Research (Lea's Communication Series)
by James G. Webster, Patricia Phalen, Lawrence W. Lichty One of my long-longtime readers, Karla Robinson, of Kentucky's School of Journalism and Telecommunications, recommends this title: "It's the best book I've seen on ratings: how they're collected, what they mean, how they're used by the industry, the difference between overnights and sweeps, etc."

General:


Defining Vision: The Battle for the Future of Television
by Joel Brinkley (Harcourt Brace, revd. ed., 1998) Within the next 15 years, you will be replacing your television set with an all-new model capable of receiving just about anything that can be sent out as digital data -- programs, Web pages, or virtual storefronts at your favorite interactive mall -- and presenting it on a breathtakingly sharp and vivid screen with theater-quality sound. That's the future, at least, as seen by Joel Brinkley, a reporter for the New York Times, in this highly readable insider account of the evolution of digital television. After a Japanese demonstration of its brilliant new prototype high-definition TV system in 1987, panicked Congressmen sensed another Sputnik-like epochal moment coming on. So they quickly set up an advisory committee on advanced TV and set up a grand "bake-off" to determine which standards, and whose technology, would be used in creating the U.S. standard for HDTV (and if it wasn't too late, the world standard, too). A company in San Diego called General Instrument joined the competition at the 11th hour and may very well have altered the future of television, because it introduced an all-digital transmission system for TV signals -- two decades before most industry experts believed it could be done. "Defining Vision" includes some picturesque descriptions of how digital communications works, and why it will utterly change the old analog order of things. Brinkley also plainly thinks that the best way to bring about the information revolution is through the one appliance everyone has -- the TV set -- and to do it for free. And this helps him breathe life into his account of the unending and occasionally bizarre political process digital TV endured. Unfortunately, the digital-TV story also involved mundane backroom dealings and petty squabbles among "the children" (the author's favorite term for the contestants), and Brinkley unwisely fills too many pages trying to paint these moments in Olympian tones. But in the end, he does remind us that all the high-stakes wrangling was for good reason.
Dictionary of Teleliteracy: Television's 500 Biggest Hits, Misses, and Events
by David Bianculli (Continuum, 1996) No one is a better chronicler of the last generation of TV than Bianculli, the New York Daily News critic and NPR commentator. He's well known for his enthusiasm for TV and his thoroughness; I once watched him sit through five episodes of "The Hunger," a series airing on Showtime, to prepare himself for one average-length review (and not a very positive one at that). His 500 picks range from "Cavalcade of Stars" and the Kefauver Crime Commission hearings to the moon landing and "The Great American Dream Machine" to Michael Jackson's 1993 interview with Oprah and the first season of "Friends." Beware: Bianculli loves puns.
The Box: An Oral History of Television 1920-1961
By Jeff Kisseloff (Viking, 1995) Oral historian Kisseloff believes in Studs Terkel's credo, "I tape, therefore I am." His eye-opening memoir retells the early years of television in an astonishingly candid and critical voice. Or should I say voices: "The Box" is actually told by hundreds of inventors, producers, writers, actors, broadcasters, advertisers and executives who were there. Kisseloff painstakingly pulled sentences and paragraphs at a time from individual interviews and assembled them into chapter-length composites. The effect is extraordinary: Each chapter reads as though all of his subjects had been conversing in the room at once -- "bantering and trading war stories over beers at Hurley's bar," as Kisseloff puts it in his introduction. Despite its anecdotal nature, this is an authoritative book covering every stage in the creation of American TV. Edward Padula describes becoming a producer for NBC in 1938, when only a few hundred sets were in use and trial-and-error was the prevailing technical method of the day. An entire chapter is devoted to KTLA, the independent station that continued to put innovate and hugely popular local programs on the air long after its competitors began receiving network feeds from the East Coast. The "golden age" of live quality productions like "Studio One" and "Philco Playhouse" is lovingly recreated by some of its principal creators. Where the book becomes a serious work of media criticism is in the passages describing the tarnished ages that overlapped with the golden. There is a chapter on the blacklisting of accused Communist sympathizers, and another on the 1950s quiz show scandals. Joe Cates, who helped create "The $64,000 Question," told Kisseloff how the show managed to keep its total budget to a measly $11,000 a week, and how Joyce Brothers won the big prize despite instructions from the sponsor, Charles Revson, that she be given the hardest questions possible (as Cates inelegantly put it, "Charlie wanted Joyce knocked off"). From that level of behind-the-scenes control, it was a logical leap to the outright cheating on "Twenty One," carried out by contestants Herbert Stempel (whose bitter rants are the center of this chapter) and Charles Van Doren (mum after all these years). Other times, Kisseloff's book really does sound like "Overheard at Hurley's": the small-time mobster who got his own summer series, then tried to get his director bumped off; the singer whose wholesome, patriotic show was a non-stop orgy behind the scenes; the TV circus literally brought to its knees by a flurry of elephant crap. But there are inspiring moments too, including Edward R. Murrow's famous on-air confrontation of Senator Joe McCarthy, recounted here by several of Murrow's colleagues. His producer Fred Friendly tells Kisseloff, "To this day, radio at its best is far superior to television," but adds that when Murrow was on the air, "people suddenly saw, 'this is what television can do.'" It still could.
On Air: The Best of Tavis Smiley on the Tom Joyner Morning Show
by Tavis Smiley, with introduction by Tom Joyner (Pines One Pub., 1998) Radio commentaries from the upstanding and progressive host of the nightly interview show "BET Tonight." Smiley is not really a media critic, but he speaks to a large minority of mainstream Americans through BET and the syndicated Tom Joyner radio program. This book demonstrates not only how restricted is the outlook of much of the so-called mainstream press, but also how one broadcaster can still reach millions of people and spur them to action. When several Texaco executives were caught on tape demeaning their black co-workers, Smiley urged listeners to boycott the company and write letters of protest. In response, the CEO of Texaco appeared on "BET Tonight" on two different occasions. Smiley's commentaries were also credited with shooting down a bill in House committee that would end all federal affirmative action.
Team Rodent: How Disney Devours the World
by Carl Hiaasen (Library of Contemp. Thought, 1998) In this brief and at times very funny issue from the Library of Contemporary Thought series, the masterful Miami Herald columnist spells out the case against the most disturbing media company on Earth. Disney's corporate culture puts brand identity and "wholesome family entertainment" over all other considerations -- including at times the welfare and safety of its theme park customers. Hiassen's critique is applicable to large media companies as a whole, which are more concerned with increasing their distribution and obliterating smaller competitors than with the quality or diversity of their product.

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Articles for February 1999

Remembering Gene Siskel

February 21, 1999--He had been one of my longtime readers on the Internet and, in our occasional e-mail exchanges, mentioned more than once that he wanted to meet me in person. So when I came to Chicago last October, Gene Siskel invited me to accompany him and a few others to a screening and lunch. But I ran late finishing a rewrite for my paper back in Kansas City and had to blow off the date. Afterward, I called Gene at home to say sorry, maybe we could hook up the next time I was in town. He cut me off. "Where are you?" he said. I told him I was just about to walk over to the city's largest independent bookseller to hawk copies of my TV guide. I'd published this thing myself and was hand-distributing it where I could. "I'll meet you there in ten minutes," said Gene. Sure enough, ten minutes later he walked into the bookstore. At first I wasn't sure it was him. He was wearing a blue hunting jacket and a cap that made him look almost nondescript. I said "almost" -- at 6-foot-4, he stood out like Saul. And when he took off the cap, he revealed one of the best-known scalps in the city if not the nation. I said I was waiting for the book consigner to return from an errand. "When she does," Gene said in a conspiratorial voice, "here's what we'll do. You'll sell her some copies, then I'll go up to her and ask her to sell me a copy." Sounded like fun. I spoke with the consigner, who agreed to take a few copies, which I went to retrieve. By the time I returned to the front desk, however, Gene had charmed her into taking every copy I had brought with me to Chicago. And then I heard her say -- not to me, of course, but to my newly self-appointed distribution agent -- that she would make sure copies got onto the racks at all the other store locations in the area. It had taken me three days to consign all my books when I visited the Bay Area; here, Gene had gotten the job done in five minutes. Then the sales pitch evolved into an impromptu session of "Siskel And." Every employee and customer in the store had now gathered around us. Gene was fully in his element -- as he was whenever people wanted to talk about movies and about Siskel and Ebert. "Roger claims to have invented 'two thumbs up,'" Gene told the assembled, "but I invented 'two thumbs way up." Gene waited a beat, then added, "And I'm pretty sure I'm the one responsible for 'two thumbs way, way up.'" Big laughs. The critic who had minutes earlier slipped into this store incognito was striding out of it a fully recognized celebrity. He loved it. Gene Siskel enjoyed being famous more than anybody I've ever met. He loved being spotted, loved to recapitulate his reviews, loved filling up college auditoriums around the country with Roger. He loved being caught on camera at the United Center, cheering on his Bulls. He loved being on Carson and Letterman. But as he battled the complications that arose after a growth was removed from his brain last May -- complications that claimed his life on Saturday, at the age of 53 -- Gene turned sharply and puzzlingly inward, fiercely guarding his medical condition, all the while keeping up a happy and productive exterior. *** We were at Starbucks, shortly after completing our conquest, when I brought up the subject. It had been five months since his emergency brain surgery. How was he feeling? Gene said he was fine. He told me about a conversation he'd had with Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former No. 2 man at Walt Disney Co. who had gone on to form DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. Like Siskel, Katzenberg had been operated on for a brain condition. Gene said, "Jeffrey had used this phrase, he said, 'I just decided I would power through it.' And I liked that. So that's what I'm doing -- I'm powering through it." Gene's point was that he only knew how to operate in one gear. If he tried to downshift while recovering from surgery, it wouldn't work. So instead he resumed his normal routine of five jobs -- newspaper critic, "Siskel & Ebert," and contributor to WBBM-TV, "CBS This Morning" and TV Guide -- two weeks after having surgery. The announcement that he would be setting those duties aside came just 17 days before his death. We had been chatting for an hour, mostly talking shop, when I asked Gene if he needed to be getting home. No, he said, he'd told his wife he would be gone until 7 o'clock, meaning we still had another two hours. I chuckled to myself. A man with five jobs has time on a Thursday afternoon for an out-of-town Internet scribe? As I later learned, this was one of the sides of Gene known to his small circle of close friends and few others. "He's a very hard man to nail down, but when you do get together with him, it's like the clock doesn't even exist," one of those friends told me. "He's a very generous man with his time." And that particularly extended to his wife, whom he met at WBBM, and his three children. We talked about our favorite topic of mutual interest, "Late Show with David Letterman." Gene wanted to try out on me something he planned to say to Dave the next time he and Roger appeared on the show. When Gene was recovering from surgery, Dave sent him a collection of baseball essays by Tom Boswell of the Washington Post because he knew they shared a love for the game. Letterman also phoned Gene and the two men talked for about half an hour. "He doesn't like to talk about things like that on his show, but I think it's a side of him people should see more," Gene said. I told him I agreed and that he should say it exactly like that on the program. Gene proposed that we walk back toward his condo in Lincoln Park, about two miles. Along the way, I saw that he was tilting a little as he walked. I asked him if he'd hurt his foot. That was a mistake: Gene immediately became self-conscious about his walking posture and tried to correct it, not very successfully. Now he was listing noticeably. He would downplay it with a self-effacing comment every few blocks. Later, we entered a bookshop owned by a friend of his and Gene walked right into a book cart. Five days after this, I received an e-mail from him, bringing up the walk again and trying once more to play it down ("Probably a muscle pull," he wrote). I later learned that Gene had been doing this with practically everyone. Whether out of denial or simply a sense that his private life was of no concern to those outside his immediate family, Gene kept his medical condition out of the public eye -- that same public eye he had joyfully occupied for three decades. Many people who woke up Sunday to the news of his passing had no idea Gene was even seriously ill. And that was how Gene wanted it. That was his choice, and it was not a wrong choice. But it was a curious one given the relationship he had forged over the years with millions of Americans. Herb Caen, by contrast, shared the news of his terminal cancer with the readers of his newspaper column. More recently Walter Payton shared at a tearful press conference that he needed a liver transplant or else he would die. Both men had been reluctant to go public with their news, and both were overwhelmed by the outpouring of support that followed. Maybe Gene Siskel didn't need that kind of public embrace. Maybe he didn't want it or feel it was merited. For whatever reason, he chose to play out his last act on this Earth quietly, before the people who mattered most to him, his family. For the rest of us, his decision to, in his words, "power through it" made his loss feel so sudden, as if he had died in a plane crash, and it left our affection for him finally unexpressed. *** About a year ago, in a phone interview, I asked Gene if he wished movie critics had more power to close down films the way New York Times theater critics could close down a Broadway show. Not really, he said. But it delighted him no end whenever a Siskel-Ebert rave brought prominence and commercial success to a film. He described the first time that happened, after they had reviewed "My Dinner With Andre" on their show: "Here's the story that was stunning to us. Our show played at 8:30 in New York, I think, where the movie had opened. And apparently the decision had been made to close the show. The 10 o'clock performance was filled. The movie wound up running in the same Lincoln Center cinema for a year. At the end of the year, in honor of our contribution, we interviewed Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory on the stage of that theater. That was a fabulous thrill and the ultimate point of being a critic. And the sweet coincidence was it was two guys who talked for a living, doing a show."

The view from Jasper

 (February 23, 1999) ABC News "Nightline" has been doing a continuing series of broadcasts on the issue of race in America. "America in Black and White" has explored aspects of the racial divide in depth in a consistent manner and with a level of insight missing from most television journalism. When the verdict came in convicting a young white man of participating in the dragging death of a black man in the small town of Jasper, Texas, "Nightline" correspondent John Donvan had been in Jasper reporting on how the tragedy affected racial relations in the small Texas town. What Donvan found -- and reported Tuesday on "Nightline" -- was people reaching out to each other. White residents who thought their racial relations were good found that their black neighbors did not share the same view to say the least. What may surprise people is that the white people of Jasper looked at the situation and found that their black fellow citizens may have a point. The actions taken to bridge the gap range from the removal of an iron fence that separated races in a graveyard to a white sheriff going over and talking to a small black child in a way that he would not have done before the dragging death. The point of the story was that people of both races in Jasper are talking to each other in a way they had not before. An honest dialog is happening where there was silence. Although it took a tragedy to create this conversation, its goal is to prevent another such tragedy and create a true sense of community in the process.
-- Harrison Wyman

Off beat

"And the Beat Goes On:
The Sonny and Cher Story" (February 20, 1999) Instant biographies are like instant coffee: they fill the need for the moment, but good brews are rare. Monday's made-for-television movie on the career of Sonny and Cher, made in the wake of Sonny Bono's tragic death in a skiing accident last year, is a compressed version of Bono's life from hustling songs in Hollywood to the end of his marriage to Cher. It's a quickie film that would have benefited from the perspective of time. The two stars are well-defined. Renee Faia captures the look, speaking voice and attitude of Cher in a surprisingly accurate performance that avoids exaggerated impersonation. Jay Underwood's portrayal of Sonny shows the relentless hustle and ambition that enabled Bono to emerge from a small-time rock-and-roll songwriter to half of a show business act that went from the pop charts to Vegas to a top-rated variety show on CBS. The story ends with Sonny and Cher's reunion performance on David Letterman's NBC show. But sub-par supporting performances (like that of the actor who plays Letterman) undermine the lead actors. And the script fails to take full advantage of one aspect of Sonny Bono: a street-smart savvy that was hidden under the public image of an amiable goofball. It's this image we're most familiar with today, since he used it to his advantage in winning election to Congress. There is material for a first-rate film in the marriage and career of Sonny and Cher. It is unfortunate that a complex and fascinating story was told in a second-rate rush.
-- Harrison Wyman

ABC scores on Thursday

 (February 17, 1999) They can talk about what a ratings disappointment ABC's "Storm of the Century" was compared with the hype generated in advance of its airing this week. But no one can deny that Thursday's finale was a tremendous lift for the network. ABC multiplied its usual Thursday audience nearly threefold in the closing hour of "Storm," registering a stunning 20 share in the 10:30 half-hour. That didn't prevent "ER's" sendoff episode for George Clooney from scoring a season-high 38 share for NBC. For that matter, CBS programming didn't seem especially hard hit. What Thursday's overnight ratings demonstrate is that when the big three networks put something compelling on the air, even at this late date in history, people will ditch their cable and tune in. During the final half hour of prime last night, nearly 70 percent of American homes were watching just three networks.

Desperate measures

 The nutty thing is, this might actually work: ABC has been getting pounded on Thursday nights for years. Nothing -- not critically-lauded dramatic series, not first-rate Hollywood flicks, na da -- has been successful against NBC's murderer's row of sitcoms. (Thursday's finale of "Storm of the Century" being a notable exception.) So in a move that smacks of desperation, ABC is putting reruns of two highly rated comedies, "The Drew Carey Show" and "Spin City," up against "Frasier" and "Veronica's Closet." ("America's Funniest Home Videos" and an ABC News-produced hour will bookend the sitcoms.) It's hard to see how this will do anything for "Drew Carey," already one of the 15 most-watched shows in television and the undisputed champ of Wednesday nights. But "Spin City" could benefit. It has stiff competition on Tuesdays from "Just Shoot Me" and could use the added exposure. And while the Michael J. Fox vehicle has been disappointing -- it's possibly the largest comedy ensemble paid to stand around and watch one or two members perform -- few will argue that it's miles better than "Veronica's Closet," which if it were on any other night would be in deep Nielsen doo-doo. The schedule shuffle takes effect March 4, one day after the winter ratings "sweep" ends. The first "Drew" repeat will be last season's memorable take on "The Full Monty." In the first "Spin" repeat, Carter (Michael Boatman) is misstaken for a mugger while jogging in Central Park.(Photo credit: Timothy White/ABC)

That really frosts my ...

 (February 17, 1999) Tom Heald writes, "So it's 28 degress out with 35-40 mph winds outside and what do I see crawling across the bottom of my screen 20 minutes into 'Dharma and Greg'? ABC STORM ALERT. STEPHEN KING'S STORM OF THE CENTURY IS COMING THIS SUNDAY. PLEASE NOTIFY ALL FRIENDS FAMILY AND NEIGHBORS TO GLUE THEMSELVES TO A TV 9/8 CENTRAL ON ABC... Cute." Tom was the first to write, but not the last. Annoyed readers began passing along their own "War of the Worlds" moments from other ABC shows, as the network relentlessly plugged "Storm of the Century," the three-parter that begins Sunday, continues Monday and concludes next Thursday. But there's more: Next week, most of the ABC sitcoms appearing on Tuesday and Wednesday will take place in winter storms. Why the network feels compelled to plug a miniseries that's two-thirds over, and unlikely to pull any new viewers away from NBC or Fox on Thursdays, is anybody's guess. But ABC executives felt so seriously about the need to cross-promote that when "SportsNight," the hit Tuesday-night comedy, chose not to do a winter-storm episode, ABC bumped it -- in the middle of sweeps no less -- for a "Dharma & Greg" repeat. And still more. Henry Nunes writes, "ABC tried to run the crawl AGAIN during 'Drew Carey.' KGO inserted this obnoxious blue station ID bar across the bottom of the screen, blocking out any 'urgent' alert messages ABC may have tried to send. KGO doing the right thing? Blocking out an obsequious notification on the basis of integrity? And they're Disney O&O? This is tasty..."

King of the Hill

(February 15, 1999) Sunday night on "60 Minutes," Mike Wallace fired the opening salvo in what is bound to be an all-out war by the nation's mayors against the gun industry. Their weapon: Litigation. Last week, a jury for the first time ruled against gun makers for the harm caused by guns they sold through gun shops to street gangs -- transactions, the plaintiffs said, that were done with the industry's full knowledge. The strategy of suing to accomplish what one is powerless to do in the legislature is not novel, of course; in recent years lawsuits brought by the attorneys-general across the country brought Big Tobacco to its knees. In fairness, however, it's been years since anyone said the nation's tobacco companies were at their peak of lobbying influence on Capitol Hill. Now the same uppance is said to be coming to the National Rifle Association, the lobby once thought to have wielded more clout with lawmakers than any other. So which lobbying force has the most power on the Hill? Ironically, many now say it's the industry in which Mike Wallace works: broadcasting. While cigarette makers and gun manufacturers face a public increasingly intolerant of their agendas, no one, it seems, has anything bad to say about the nation's broadcasters and their shameless agenda to become even more powerful. Yet in city after city, they have turned what used to be a community-oriented business into a faceless enterprise that often regards local viewers with contempt and is more interested in pleasing Wall Street than Main Street. Assisting the broadcasters in their efforts are the two Senators most actively involved in shaping communications law: John McCain of Arizona and Conrad Burns of Montana. I would've thought Sen. Burns, at least, would know better. As a boy I grew up watching him deliver the Farm-Ag report on the Montana Television Network at 7:25 a.m. every morning, during the station break on the "Today" show. MTN was an unusual cooperative that allowed five stations around the state, all of them in tiny markets, to share a single newsgathering source. (Billings, my hometown, was the largest market and it was at around No. 170. Helena, with just 15,000 TV households, was one of the nation's smallest markets.) Ed Coughlin anchored the statewide newscast, then a hometown anchor jumped in at the quarter-hour with the really local news. Broadcasting was very good to Conrad Burns. A few years ago, he ran for his first political office, Yellowstone County commissioner, and won easily. The next year he decided to go all the way and run for U.S. Senate. What the heck. John Melcher, the incumbent Democrat, was considered unbeatable. Burns was willing to be the GOP's sacrifice. But then somebody took a poll and determined that Burns, upon joining the race, had near-total name recognition throughout the state -- something a Republican usually had to spend months building up. TV had made Burns famous, and it made him a contender. Fed-up Montanans did the rest. Although MTN has modified somewhat since then, it's still in business serving its member stations with local newscasts. It's a stark contrast to stations in other, larger markets, where the creeping influence of distantly-controlled ownership groups can be more easily seen. News is less local. There's more packaged stuff pulled off the satellite and overdubbed with some local reporter's voice. It might as well be the voice of the guy who does the station ID's. Reporters hate this excuse for journalism; viewers aren't too thrilled with it either. But when the station owner is out of town and out of touch -- except, of course, when monitoring the sales figures -- who cares? Well, I care. And that's why it annoys me to see Sen. McCain, no doubt with the full support of Burns, pushing to make it possible for a single entity to own TV stations reaching 50 percent of the country. The current maximum is 35 percent. This is supposedly being done in the name of "competitiveness," but I'm not buying it. The average TV station used to report profit margins near 50 percent of revenues. Now that number is down to 31 percent. In response, managers -- usually at the national level -- are slashing like crazy. Mel Karmazin reported last week that the stations owned by the CBS network squeezed out stellar 40 percent profit margins. But he did it by carrying on a tradition started by his predecessor Larry Tisch: cutting, cutting, cutting costs. It probably won't be enough, not with audience levels continuing to decline for the big network affiliates. So CBS, as well as all of the other networks and the big station groups, want that 35 percent ceiling raised so they can acquire more stations, consolidate more operations, cut more costs and pay higher dividends to their stockholders. In testimony before the Federal Communications Commission on Friday, Big Broadcast made its case. A lawyer for one of the largest station-group owners said, "While new video outlets on cable, satellite, Internet and telcos are exploding onto the competitive horizon, TV stations have to exist under a regime of scarcity-based ownership regulation." What'll be scarce, if the broadcasters have their way, are resources for local news operations. Already news directors are being forced to fill time with national content, or rip 'n' read headlines because there aren't enough reporters to tell all of the good stories around town. Everyone's doing health news, using tape acquired from out of market. And yet station managers are being told to do MORE news -- spreading an already-thin newsroom staff to the point of transparency -- because news is a "profit center." If the FCC has its way, the 35 percent cap will hold. But wait. Sens. McCain and Burns have been sending letters to the FCC, threatening to take away its powers if it continues to fiddle with what the senators call the commission's "Congressional mandate." In other words, the senators are saying: We set the rules, dear commissioners, not you. And who has a direct line to Sens. McCain and Burns? The National Association of Broadcasters, considered by many to be the most powerful lobby in Washington. Officially, the NAB is against raising the cap (probably in response to the smaller stations who make up much of its membership). But with some of the big-ass station groups threatening to leave the NAB if it doesn't change its position, don't assume that's set in stone. Big Broadcast may still form a unified front for raising the limit to 50 percent. And if that happens -- well, as Bill Kurtis once famously told the citizens of Topeka during a tornado, "For God's sake, take cover!" This story promises to get more interesting as the 106th Congress gets back to the business of passing laws instead of articles of impeachment. Stay tuned.

Unrequited love: The demise of "Cupid"

(February 12, 1999) "Cupid," the latest noble failure unlucky enough to have been green-lighted by ABC, aired its last episode Thursday. The last two, "Nothing Sacred" and "Cracker," were scheduled on Thursday nights, got the crap beat out of them by NBC sitcoms, were shuffled off to Saturdays and died. "Cupid," meanwhile, started on Saturdays, then got the crap beat out of it on Thursdays. See how that works? Last summer, the creator of "Cupid," Rob Thomas, had told me it was his quiet wish that, after the inevitable beating his show would take in the fall on Saturdays, ABC would move it to Mondays once football season was over. Sorry -- Mondays went to movies and the inexpensive fourth night of "20/20." If ABC really wants to keep their costs down, they could always turn their entertainment division over to ESPN and news... But not all hope is lost. A spokesman for the WB told me last week that the network had asked for tapes of "Cupid" to get acquainted with Jeremy Piven's and Paula Marshall's (pictured) quick-witted chemistry. What WB would really like to do is put some episodes of the show on this spring or summer. But that seems unlikely; why would ABC want to lose any more face seeing a show they'd dumped become a hit in the same season? Failing that, "Cupid" may still have a chance to make WB's fall schedule, when the network begins a sixth night of programming. By the way, for those of you who always felt the "Cracker" shown on A&E was far superior to the one on ABC, well, now you're both right. A&E announced Wednesday it's picking up the Robert Torricelli "Cracker" to add to its stock of the British original. (Photo Credit: Dan Zaitz/ABC)

Precious moments

(February 9, 1999) We're glad the twins are safe, but did Monday's delivery episode of "7th Heaven" have to end with a singing of the "Mary Tyler Moore" theme song? Ostensibly it is a "Camden family tradition" to sing to Mom right after she's given birth, but what was the deal with the TV meta-reference? Isn't this a minister's family? Couldn't Dad have thought of one hymn that might better the occasion? A show tune? Something? If the writers who cranked out this extra-sappy episode were bent on using a TV tune, they could've at least tried the "Sanford & Son" theme, "Hang in There, Baby." Those of you watching "MAD TV" on Saturday may have wondered about that brief but violent appearance by Bret "Hitman" Hart. It all got resolved Monday night on basic cable, as reader Oliver Willis explains: "Will Sasso from 'Mad TV' made an appearance on TNT's 'Monday Nitro' wrestling show, continuing his 'feud' with Bret 'Hitman' Hart. Sasso heckled Hart during his match, and jumped over the guardrail to get in a tussle with the Hitman. Sasso then interfered in the match (in a weird referee tug of war incident), causing Bret Hart to lose the U.S. Championship title."

Multiple "Fractured Fairy Tales"

Jay Ward, the undisputed master of early TV cartoons, gave us Crusader Rabbit, Rocky the Squirrel and George of the Jungle. But some would say his greatest achievement was a long-running series of animated shorts that had no easily identifiable cartoon stars and were usually written above the heads of their supposedly intended audience. Now 25 of those minor classics have been assembled in paperback form as "Fractured Fairy Tales" (Bantam, $9.95 retail but cheaper at amazon.com). These perverse satires on the Grimm Brothers' children tales feature such never-to-be-beloved stories as "The Enchanted Gnat," "Thom Tum" and "Son of King Midas." Although they aired nearly 40 years ago -- during "Rocky and His Friends" -- many of them still hold up today. Kuwait till you read this opening from "The Flying Carpet": "A very long time ago in a far-off land there lived a very rich and powerful sultan. And each year he became richer and more powerful, for it was the custom of the people -- a custom, incidentally, that the sultan came up with -- to bring him expensive gifts on his birthday. He had two birthdays every year. That was also the sultan's idea." I chatted recently with the book's compiler, A.J. Jacobs, the Entertainment Weekly writer who in 1996 tossed off the funnier-than-heck America Off-Line: The Complete Outernet Starter Kit, about "Fractured Fairy Tales": "This one actually was inspired by the publisher who called me and asked me to do it. The editor was I think Irwyn Applebaum at Bantam. I'm guessing he's a baby boomer. They did a big Rocky and Bullwinkle book three years ago, and this is a spinoff. They couldn't get enough 'Fractured Fairy Tales' in there so they tossed me a bone. "Apparently it's very hard to get permission from the Jay Ward estate; they were right there at every step. But when they did finally approve it, they sent over a whole bunch of scripts. It was interesting to look them over and see Jay's comments written in the margins. He was pretty hands-on. "I wanted to go out there to the Ward mansion (in southern California) because my friends said it was pretty wild. They have these huge portraits of Rocky and Bullwinkle in these fancy frames, like they were George Washington."

Articles for the week of March 1, 1999


Monica mows 'em down

(March 5, 1999) Despite all of the pre-show publicity -- the promos, the excerpts, and an orchestrated campaign of leaks to the media worthy of the Clinton White House -- I was reluctant to believe that post-impeachment America would gather around their TV sets in large numbers to watch as this final chapter in the Monica Lewinsky saga was played out in a two-hour Barbara Walters interview. The first hint I had that I might be wrong came as we were driving home last night at around 8:30, one half hour after the interview had begun. We live in a restaurant district in Kansas City, and Wednesdays are typically good nights for the local merchants. The streets were noticeably quieter last night, and when the Nielsen ratings for 43 metered markets, including ours, arrived here Friday morning, I knew why. Wednesday's "20/20" blew away all the skeptics who predicted the broadcast would have trouble drawing even a 30 share from a viewing public that's burned out by the scandal. At its peak, nearly half of the households using television were watching ABC. The interview started with a 44 share and built to a 49 share in the final segment. The ripple effect was felt well into late-night, as Ted Koppel's extended "Nightline" -- a superb fast-forward through the last 14 months of the scandal -- drew more viewers than Letterman and Leno combined, and "Politically Incorrect" nearly doubled its average. In hindsight, most of the public had turned off this scandal long ago. So tuning in for the final act seemed fitting, not unlike Gracie Allen starting a book by skipping to the end. Many of us sensed, as we have in our half-century-long relationship with the tube, that this was a national event, something not to be missed, something to say you saw last night, something NBC's West Coast chief Don Ohlmeyer, who apparently doesn't go to church, likes to call "a communal experience." Thursday morning I was asked on a local radio show if last night had been "good for TV or bad for TV." I said that it was TV, that good or bad, the Lewinsky interview was a quintessential mass-media event, the kind of event we used to have all the time, whether it was watching Ed Sullivan or singing along with Mitch or listening to a story 'bout a man named Jed. ALSO: Monica manufactures an aura

How sweep it is

(March 5, 1999) So which of the big six broadcast networks won the February ratings sweep (Feb. 5 through March 3)? If you believe everything you read in PR, they all did!


Top This

(March 5, 1999) In its post-Monica Lewinsky interview broadcast Wednesday, "Nightline" summarized the entire 14-month episode from beginning until tonight (I'm reluctant to say "end") with one of the most brilliant uses of videotape and editing I've seen in a news program in a long time. "Nightline" used a video chronology that began with the first reports last January and proceeded on to the last word of Barbra Walters' interview with Lewinsky Wednesday night. One of the highlights was seeing Lewinsky's first lawyer, William Ginsburg, losing his temper with a group of reporters who were following him. He finished his rant by threatening not to give interviews. The next shot was a 16-panel split screen showing Ginsburg on every talk show in operation, a sort of one-man "Hollywood Squares." I didn't think that could be topped until that night's "Late Late Show," when ad creator and humorist Stan Freberg told Tom Snyder about being censored by CBS in the 1960s over a joke involving an American Indian. Freberg had filmed an ad for Jeno's Pizza Rolls that parodied another ad for Lark cigarettes. Like the original Lark ad, the Jeno's ad used the "William Tell Overture," popular then as the theme to the "Lone Ranger." At the end of the commercial a man emerges with a pack of cigarettes in his hand and says, "I'd like to speak to you about the use of that music." He is then tapped on the shoulder by Clayton Moore, TV's "Lone Ranger," who says, "So would I." Jay Silverheels, who played Tonto on the series, then appears and asks, "Have a Pizza Roll, Kemosabe?" Before the ad runs on CBS, Freberg gets a call from a woman in Standards and Practices insisting that Silverheels submit a letter agreeing that he is portraying an American Indian in a negative stereotype. If he refuses, the ad won't run. Keep in mind this is about 1965, not 1999. Freberg tells the woman, "But he's Tonto! He's a real Indian!", to no avail. Finally Freberg gives up, calls Silverheels and tells him the situation. Silverheels screams the same thing at Freberg: "But I'm Tonto! I'm a real Indian!" Finally he agrees to write the letter. But he asks Freberg to do him a favor: "Would you tell that woman to stop screwing around with my residuals?" I didn't think that one could be topped until "World News Now" showed some recent video of singer Gloria Gaynor singing her disco classic "I Will Survive" at a Democratic fundraiser in New Jersey -- with Bill Clinton in attendance. --Harrison Wyman

Washington Wreck in Review

Washington Week in Review
 Fridays, 8 p.m.
PBS
A group of reporters and columnists from America's major newspapers and networks summarize the events of the week based on what they know, not what they think. This is the simple idea behind "Washington Week in Review," a 32-year mainstay of public television. It may have been dull to some viewers, but no wonder ever said it wasn't stable. Until last week, that is, when all hell broke loose after Ken Bode, the host of "WWIR," was fired by WETA, the Washington, D.C., PBS affiliate that produces the show. Unlike the commercial networks, individual PBS stations produce programs for national distribution. And individual station executives can change long-running national shows. Dalton Delan is WETA's new head of programming; his previous television experience was in cable, with The Sundance Channel and The Travel Channel. Delan's assignment: Review WETA's national programming and make it more competitive. According to reports in the Washington Post, Delan wanted to replace Bode as moderator with Gwen Ifill, Capitol Hill correspondent for NBC News and "WWIR" regular. Ifill turned down the moderator's chair, citing her full workload at NBC. Bode told the Washington Post that Delan wanted a broadcast with "edge", "attitude" and ideological "opinion," adding high school and college journalists, a "man on the street" segment and surprise guests. "WWIR" is a broadcast where change is made reluctantly. In five years as moderator in 1994, Bode and producer Elizabeth Piersol introduced videotape clips as a reference point for discussions, and beamed in reporters on the scene of news events via satellite. And that was considered revolutionary. To "WWIR" veterans, Delan's ideas sounded like complete abandonment of the old format. With Bode gone, Piersol was called into a meeting with Delan and WETA president Sharon Rockefeller and fired. WETA board member Roger Wilkens resigned in protest of Bode's firing, describing the station's actions as "deceptive." Delan denies proposing radical change in "WWIR," adding that any changes would not alter the nature or tradition of the broadcast. Bode, a former veteran of NBC and CNN, is currently the dean of the Medill Journalism School at Northwestern University. When he agreed to his dismissal, he signed a contract to continue with the broadcast for a four-month transition period. But when Bode arrived from Chicago on February 26 he was told not to moderate that night's program. That evening WETA president Rockefeller opened the broadcast asking the public to judge "WWIR" by what was on the air and not by print media reports. New York Daily News columnist Steven Roberts, a longtime "WWIR" panelist, hosted last Friday's program. At its end, Roberts thanked Bode for his service and contributions to the broadcast. Roberts also announced the return of Paul Duke, host of "WWIR" for 20 years. Bode succeeded Duke after his retirement. Last week's events put a program cited by PBS's own audience research as having credibility second only to "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer" in an unstable state with many regular panelists questioning their future participation on "WWIR" WETA's Rockefeller summed up the turbulent week by saying, "For people in the communications business, we didn't communicate too well." --Harrison Wyman

Memo to the New York Post:

(March 4, 1999) First of all, let me just say thanks for reading. How do I know you're reading? Well, for one thing your editorial page editor John Podhoretz sent me mail recently saying, "Your new site is just terrific." For another thing -- you lifted a story straight off this page and didn't acknowledge your source! Don't tell me a little birdie just dropped in your ear that story you ran Wednesday, "DAVE TO NIX SCALPERS WITH 'PIX FOR TIX.'" Of course not: you read it here first. In the past, when I was still doing LATE SHOW NEWS (and, I might add, citing the Post whenever I used one of your items), that other New York tab wasn't afraid to cite an "online newsletter" as its source. Neither should you. C'mon, guys -- give TV Barn its props. You know you would if Matt Drudge were involved. Your pal,
Aaron Manufacturing an aura (March 4, 1999) With her hair pulled back in a chaste fashion, eyes moist and transfixed on her interrogator, Monica S. Lewinsky wowed the nation last night on ABC in what could be considered the quintessential sweeps event: a blockbuster performance hyped to holy hell and calculated to stretch viewers' attention spans to their legal limits. Just the night before we'd had another one of these: Fox's "Live From Egypt," an archaeological dig that was about as spontaneous as that live episode of "ER." Similarly, the Barbara Walters interview of Lewinsky on Wednesday's "20/20" successfully manufactured an aura for itself (revelation and truth-telling) that disguised the fact it was little more than an exercise in television. Oh, sure, the interview broke some news. But Lewinsky had already spilled her guts to biographer Andrew Morton, and his book Monica's Story was already being unpacked from cartons last night. Perhaps more annoying than the hype preceding the interview was the fact that the program itself went on for two hours when it was clear Lewinsky only had about an hour's worth of material. The reason? No one starts a Big Event at half past the hour. Thus the special was extended for another three acts with endless teases that actually made "The E! True Hollywood Story" look like a model of restraint. But when Lewinsky finished her sympathetic interview with the words she planned to tell her children if asked about her affair with the president -- "Mommy made a big mistake" -- it brought the February sweep to a close, and not a moment too soon. (Photo credit: CNN) ALSO: Monica mania on ABC

"Lansky": Mobster as bureaucrat

"Lansky"
HBO, premiered Feb. 27
(repeats Mar 2, Mar 7, Mar 10, Mar 16, Mar 22, Mar 25, among other dates; check listings for times) If true success is living to a ripe old age and never spending a day in jail, Meyer Lansky was the most successful gangster of his generation. There are more colorful stories in the annals of organized crime but the stories usually ended in bullets and blood. Lansky survived because he literally organized crime: from bootlegging to gambling, Lansky wielded power almost invisibly, arranging for the violence that kept order and secured for himself the power and influence that only money can buy. Focusing a story on him is a bit like telling the story of a company's chief financial officer and not its founder. But HBO's "Lansky" does it with solid storytelling and a first-rate cast. Richard Dreyfuss is not the first name that springs to mind for the lead in a film about the mob, but he is inspired casting in the title role, combining brains and subtle menace. Writer David Mamet's ("Wag the Dog," "The Untouchables") typically profane script tells a story of a life that started on the lam and almost ended there. It begins, as so many HBO movies do, with the elderly Lansky waiting in Jerusalem either to be awarded Israeli citizenship or a ticket back to America for possible imprisonment. The story then reviews Lansky's childhood as he flees Russian persecution and becomes a young street tough on New York's Lower East Side at the turn of the century, becoming friends with with Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and earning the respect of a teenage Charlie "Lucky" Luciano. Dreyfuss is surrounded by actors who give solid, realistic performances. A key performance is turned in by Eric Roberts, who plays the adult Bugsy. Siegel spends a fortune on building the Flamingo hotel in Las Vegas in the late 1940's while girlfriend Virginia Hill (Peggy Jo Jacobs) keeps making unexplained trips to Switzerland. Siegel's freespending ways have lost the support of the "commission" that runs organized crime, including the exiled Luciano (Anthony LaPaglia). In the end even Lansky cannot save his childhood comrade from his own excesses. You could make an argument that parts of this story have been better told in other movies. A case could even be made that the best portrayal of Meyer Lansky was Lee Strasberg's fictional Hyman Roth in "The Godfather: Part II." But "Lansky" tells this crime story on its own terms, a new take on the dark side of the American Dream. Even though Dreyfuss's character says he "wouldn't change a thing," the success of a man of Lansky's drive, brains and will--had he gone legit--might have been staggering. The saddest words in American film apply to Meyer Lansky as well: He could have been a contender.
-- Harrison Wyman

Monica mania

 Walters/Sawyer Diane Sawyer and her special guest host on Wednesday's "20/20," Barbara Walters. (Photo: Michael O'Neill/ABC News) (March 3, 1999) If you think tonight's "20/20" encounter between Barbara Walters and Monica Lewinsky is the last word in presidential hanky-panky, think again: Lewinsky's tell-all book, written by Diana biographer Andrew Morton, is being published Thursday. (Hey, and it's just 15 bucks at amazon.com, he shilled!) That's not to say anyone seriously questions the timing of this event, which begins at 9 p.m. Wednesday. After all, it is the last night of the February ratings sweep. But some are questioning whether the two-hour broadcast will attract even 30 percent of the viewing audience. To give you some idea of what that means, an episode of "ER" topped a 30 share in February -- twice. And as I report in Wednesday's Kansas City Star, even the electronic media have had it with this story, which can't bode well for Walters & Company. (Here's my story.) Take NBC, for example. The network that aired a softball "Dateline" interview last week with another reluctant presidential accuser, Juanita Broaddrick, is having second thoughts. According to the industry faxsheet TV Business Confidential, NBC News has issued an order restricting the use of the interview footage by NBC outlets. That includes MSNBC and CNBC, which reportedly will have to get the OK from legal counsel every time they want to use clips from the interview. You'll understand why when you read Eric Mink's devastating review of the Broaddrick interview that aired last week on "Dateline." There was also an op-ed in the Washington Post praising NBC's handling of the Broaddrick interview but noting that a media circus hovered over the network as it tried to do the right thing. ALSO: Are you planning YOUR Lewinsky TV party?

They're baaaaaaack!

(March 3, 1999) No, I'm not referring to Barbara Walters and Miss Thongsnapper. I'm referring to this: On Wednesday night Fresh Step is doing the Letterman show again! If that isn't reason enough to stay up late, what is? Fresh Step (pictured), LATE SHOW NEWS readers will recall, is a fake, a fraud, a swindle. It's a Backstreet Boys parody group named for a brand of kitty litter. Only, the American public has never been told the truth about them. Fresh Step was introduced last month on "Late Show with David Letterman" -- with a straight face -- by the host, who held up the group's nonexistent CD, and then on they came, lip-synching a song that went like this:
"F is for the fresh cuz that's what we are
R is for reality, we're living large
E is for emotion cuz we know how to feel
S is for the street cuz we're keepin' it real
H is for my homies cuz we got a bad rep
But ya gotta be fresh 2 fresh with da Fresh Step."
Bewildered fans wrote in. It wasn't even GOOD lip-synching ... That guy with the dredlocks -- that had to be a wig, right? A few days later, I exposed the sham in this issue of LATE SHOW NEWS. And then my moles started to check in. Ann Miner of Talkin' Broadway wrote: "Three of the 'members' of Fresh Step are Broadway performers from Footloose (Jeremy Kushnier, Jamie Gustis, and Brad Madison) and supposedly have signed a contract with Letterman for future appearances." Those future appearances begin Wednesday. Tune in -- it's bound to be delightfully appalling. (Fresh Step lyrics courtesy the "Late Show's" Wahoo Gazette

Concerto for Carmody

 March 2, 1999--The Style section of The Washington Post carried TV listings and articles from its inception in the late 1960s. What it didn't have until 1977 was a steady writer of television--not reviews, but reporting on the business of television on a daily basis, particularly local television. "The TV Column" was not unique: you could find the same set of facts in say, the New York Daily News. But it was Carmody's writing style that made it unique. Carmody wrote with two sets of readers in mind: industry insiders and the other 750,000-plus readers of The Post who would check the daily grid of TV listings and noticed the column to its left (now opposite page) every day. Not to say that he was perfect: If you were under 35 you wanted to turn "Captain Airwaves" cape over his head and whack him when he dismissed or outright insulted a performer that spoke to younger audiences. Carmody was in his mid-50's when "The TV Column" started and the generation gap between Carmody and his younger readers just got wider as the years passed. But that does not minimize what Carmody did in explaining the inner workings of television to a wider audience. Carmody was to television what Post sports columnist Andrew Beyer is to horse racing. He could take a subject that most people normally would not read about and not only make it readable but make the reader understand why it was important: the primary function of journalism. The highest compliment you can pay a feature in the paper is that you missed it when it wasn't there. "The TV Column" would go missing for what seemed long periods in 1998. And when Lisa de Moraes byline suddenly appeared this past summer it was an abrupt surprise. Carmody was doing battle with cancer, a fight he never wrote about and his readers never knew about until his death was reported on one of the local TV newscasts he always wrote about. Dan Rather noted his passing on Monday's "CBS Evening News," reflecting the influence Carmody's writing about television had beyond the Post's Washington area circulation. Part news analysis, part industry tip sheet and part local TV review, Carmody made me laugh and sometimes irked the hell out of me but I always read him. I can't thank him directly now, but I can be thankful that he was here to write about television for the most important people in broadcasting: its viewers. --Harrison Wyman
(with thanks and apologies to Duke Ellington)

Live! From! The! Tombs! Of! Egypt!

(March 2, 1999) Grab an air sickness bag -- it's gonna be a bumpy ride for the next two nights as the February sweep approaches the final runway. First up is "Opening the Lost Tombs: Live From Egypt," airing tonight on Fox, and judging from the unintentionally hilarious press kit, the live excavation of an Egyptian queen's tomb may (or may not) help us better understand (or not) whether the Egyptians got some help building them pyramids. "And if so, from whom? Alien visitors from another world? Descendants of the lost civilization of Atlantis?" Arthur Kent hosts.

That's the ticket

March 1, 1999--Getting into David Letterman's late-night TV show has never been easy. But since he took his act from NBC to CBS, demand for tickets has gotten just plain ridiculous -- which is a bit of a paradox since Letterman is taping 20 percent more shows than he used to (he does five shows a week; at NBC he did four) and the Ed Sullivan Theatre holds more than twice as many people as NBC's Studio 6A. The procedure used to be that you'd mail in a postcard request, wait a few weeks or months, then with luck you'd receive two tickets. If after six months you were still waiting, why that was your cue to put pen to postcard and try all over again. With this routine, the waiting list for tickets was held comfortably at six months for the first few seasons at CBS. But recently, I received a letter from one of my longtime readers, a regular attendee of "Late Show" tapings who lives in New Jersey. "The ticketing at David Letterman has significantly changed over the past several months, and I am not sure what they are doing," he writes. "Now you get a postcard, asking you to call up to reserve your seats. When you call up, you can basically schedule for any time in the next month or so, although whatever you say on the phone is final (it seems they have this all computerized and coded). They also go through a marketing survey, where they ask four questions: your age and gender, how often you watch the show, why you want to be in the studio audience, and a David Letterman trivia question, presumably to test the knowledge of the respondent. (The two questions I got in the past couple of months were, 'What is Paul Shaffer's nationality?' and 'What is the color of the announcer's hair?') This seemingly is a more useful system that allows would-be guest to schedule more conveniently, but I have to assume it means a lot more work for the folks at the 'Late Show.' I can only assume the information on guests is pertinent enough. "The oddest thing is that recently, for one visit, I got a call from the 'Late Show' (for the frankly mediocre show with Val Kilmer and Billy Bragg), saying they had a large number of male cancellations, and since I was going with a male friend, I could invite up to ten more male folks with me. I was a bit suspicious, thinking that Dave was trying to pack the audience with testosterone for some prank (he wasn't). However, arranging to bring four more friends did require several back-and-forth phone calls with friendly 'Late Show' staff, and I wondered: Is the gender balance of the laugh track worth the staff time to arrange all this?" Good question. I put it recently to "Late Show" executive producer Rob Burnett, who said the changes in ticketing policy were driven by the growing conviction among his ticket staff that the old procedure had become "inefficient and not very fan-friendly." There were times when, under the crush of demand, ticket requests were being fulfilled up to two years after they were made. "We thought that was kind of silly," said Burnett. "So now what we've done -- at some expense to us, I must say -- is we have set up a sort of reservation system." Under the new system, everyone who requests a ticket gets one. But the viewer must then call into the ticket office to reserve an actual taping date. In theory, this extends the queue even farther into the distance, because no one's request is ignored. In practice, it shifts the burden for fulfilling the request back to the viewer, who doesn't always follow through. And it means that viewers with flexible schedules can attend a taping within days of making a reservation if they are willing to go on a night when the demand for tickets was low. They may even get an unsolicited call from the ticket office asking them to bring friends, as happened to my reader prior to the Val Kilmer taping. P.S. My mole also reports that ticket-holders are having their photo ID's checked, probably because there have been reports of people scalping the free "Late Show" tickets. And you'd still better show up early because Letterman staff continue to dispense more tickets than there are seats in the Ed Sullivan -- after all, scarce or not the tickets are free and to a certain portion of the population, that means attendance is optional.

Comedy Central: A seventh-year stitch

(This piece originally appeared in Broadcasting & Cable magazine in May, 1998.) By Aaron Barnhart It was probably fitting that the act supplying the entertainment for Comedy Central's seventh-anniversary bash in Manhattan last month should be R&B legend Isaac Hayes and his band. Hayes suddenly is back in demand, with a long list of engagements lined up. And he has Comedy Central's animated juggernaut "South Park" -- for which he supplies the voice of the school's cook and resident sex machine -- to thank. It's not clear how long Hayes will be able to ride this new wave of popularity, but at least he's hit the big time before. But all this is very new for Comedy, for years a well-kept secret among cable viewers and, as the network's own executives admit, one of basic cable's most puzzling underperformers. "I think everybody felt that a comedy network was a great idea, but someone had to figure out how to execute it," said Doug Herzog, the former MTV executive who has been running Comedy since 1995. "We always felt we were the last of the big basic (cable) ideas, and I think 1998 is the year we begin to fulfill that promise." Thanks to the surprising success of "South Park," viewers are clamoring for the network like never before -- and operators are listening. After struggling to push through the 40 million subscriber level two years ago -- a process Herzog jokes was so enjoyable "we did it a couple more times" -- Comedy is now positioned to blow through the 50 million mark and possibly 55 million by year's end. "We're feeling great, feeling very fortunate," said Herzog. "This has meant a great deal to our business overall. Now we're trying to harness all our momentum and get to the next level." That "next level" is the promised land, the 60-million subscriber club that would establish Comedy as one of the top basic cable networks and end years of speculation about its not-so-amusing status as an underachiever. And as Herzog is careful to point out, whether Comedy gets to breathe that rarified air doesn't entirely depend on how far they can ride "South Park's" snowball. "`South Park' is clearly helping, but as I like to tell people, if you were to ask me how we were doing the day before `South Park' went on the air, I'd say pretty good," Herzog said. Since arriving at Comedy, Herzog has used good strategy and good luck to his advantage. One of the first things he had to do was find a new flagship show after Bill Maher informed Herzog that he was taking his show, "Politically Incorrect," to ABC. "In my mind I had an idea almost immediately of what I wanted to do," Herzog said. "A show that was morning radio meets 'The Today Show' meets `Weekend Update,' a news-oriented show. And Craig Kilborn, believe it or not, was my idea of what the host should be. I didn't even know his name. There was just this funny guy on ESPN who served as kind of a model host." Kilborn happened to be exiting ESPN about that time and had told his agent he wanted to work in comedy, not sports. Herzog paired Kilborn with Madeleine Smithberg, the Letterman show veteran who produced Jon Stewart's talk show, and comedian Lizz Winstead. "The Daily Show" was born. "It all worked out for the best for everyone," Herzog said. "Maher is a success on the network, and it allows me to say to someone like Craig, 'You can be the next Bill Maher.' " First, however, Herzog had to convince Comedy Partners, the 50-50 joint venture formed when Time Warner and Viacom merged their money-losing funny channels in 1991, to let him spend more money on developing original programming. At the time, Comedy had exactly three originals in its stable: two were cult shows ("Mystery Science Theater 3000" and "Dr. Katz") and the third was Maher's. "It wasn't a giant investment -- we're still talking basic cable -- but when I got here, we were supposed to turn a profit in 1996," said Herzog. "I said to the partners, 'We can either take a profit or we can build up the asset value.'" The partners readily agreed to Herzog's plan, and the result has been a series of well-received series, including two other daily shows, "Win Ben Stein's Money" and "Make Me Laugh," and "Viva Variety," a retro-pop weekly featuring members of The State, a comedy ensemble featured on MTV during Herzog's years there. But no amount of spending could've produced the lightning strike that occurred when Comedy's head of development in Los Angeles, Debby Liebling, came upon a short, crudely Claymated cartoon pitting Jesus versus Santa. The cartoon's creators, a couple of twenty-somethings from Colorado named Matt Stone and Trey Parker, were approached by several networks. But Herzog said he was the only one to offer the duo their own show and the amount of creative freedom for which "South Park" has since become famous (or notorious, depending on your point of view). "We understand other networks were interested in it," said Herzog, "We were lucky enough to get it. But find me another network that would've aired this show." Not even MTV? "I'm not sure they would've," Herzog said. "Matt and Trey quite frankly were not highly sought after at the time `South Park' was sold. They were young guys with an outrageous idea that the networks were not going to touch in a million years." The broadcast networks might be having second thoughts now that 6 million young viewers are ditching them for Comedy on Wednesday nights. "South Park's" audience has been growing from week one and the show sets new records for basic cable practically with each new episode. Even an April Fool's Day prank that flopped -- the episode did not reveal the identity of Cartman's father as had been promised, resulting in thousands of angry e-mails sent to Comedy -- failed to put a stop to the show's surging popularity. "South Park's" made it an ideal time for Herzog to finally create Comedy's own in-house affiliate sales force after 6 1//2 years of relying on MTV Networks, a subsidiary of co-owner Viacom. "MTV did a fabulous job for us for many, many years and really got the network on its feet," said Herzog. "But it was always part of the plan that at some point Comedy Central would have its own independent sales force. So the timing seemed right on a lot of levels to do it in 1998. "What no one counted on was the good fortune with `South Park' and what a boon that has been to our sales effort." The show has been an 800-pound gorilla in recent deals, most notably picking up TCI systems that punted it in 1996, when MSO's cash shortage led it to bump Comedy for networks willing to pay for carriage. In other markets like Madison, Wisc., where college students have groused for years about not being able to get Comedy, "South Park" created the critical mass needed to win over the local operator. That is a big turnaround from last year, when MTV and VH1 -- but not Comedy -- were restored to several TCI systems after fans of the networks complained. Comedy added 1.5 million TCI subscribers recently, including sales announced Apr. 24 in San Jose and Pittsburgh. Brad Samuels, who heads up Comedy's affiliate sales, said his sales force encourages operators to conduct subscriber surveys because Comedy invariably winds up at the top of customers' wish lists. In an era of direct-satellite TV, surveys get results. "Systems have become more responsive to what their customers want that they're not carrying," said Samuels. "They're listening more to what their CSRs are hearing over the phone. That's the way it should be." Samuels also insists it's not just about one show. "When we sit down to meet with operators, the interest in `The Daily Show' and `Win Ben Stein's Money' and some of specials and even `Viva Variety' has risen in the eyes of decision makers," he said. "As soon as I start talking about `South Park' I'm finding they're finishing my sentences, saying, `I've been watching "The Daily Show" too,' and starting conversations about other shows on the network." Samuels also touts the benefits of Comedy for local ad sales. "Many local operators are inserting local ads immediately after the switch," whereas previously they might wait several months before attempting to insert ads on Comedy. "We've got shows with ratings too significant not to offer local advertisers." The network averages an 0.5 rating but that number has topped 0.8 on "South Park" Wednesdays. The next tier of shows don't do badly, either: newcomers "Ben Stein," "Make Me Laugh" and "Viva" are all considered ratings successes. Next up: "Bob & Margaret," based on the Academy Award-winning animated short about a miserable dentist and his fussy wife; and a series featuring the New York-based comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade, which will get what Herzog called "the most coveted slot in all of cable" as the new lead-out to "South Park." Comedy executives are frustrated that no program has been able to retain more than 30 percent of the "South Park" audience, perhaps owing to the fact that the show's unmatched outrageousness virtually eliminates the chance of finding its twin. But Herzog is optimistic he will solve that problem, if only because Comedy will continue to corner the market on cutting-edge writers and performers. "The networks are into taking chances, but with something a little more familiar and a little brand equity in terms of the star. And if they have the good fortune to uncover a `South Park' I question whether they've got the guts to put something like that on."

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Articles for the week of March 8, 1999

The last issue of LATE SHOW NEWS

LATE SHOW NEWS #236 *** FIFTH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE ***
February 17, 1999
posted March 12
by Aaron Barnhart "The Feb. 14th 'Late Show' featuring the premiere of Dave's Mom's ... was Dave's highest-rated show since [the] debut on August 28, 1993. The reasons seem pretty clear: CBS produced special 'Dave's Mom' spots, word of mouth spread quickly once Dave announced on the show last week that this was not a gag and that Hillary Clinton would be Mom's first guest, and there was that agreement binding all CBS affiliates to air 'Late Show' at its 'live' clearance time of 11:35 p.m. Eastern ... Weasel stations will return to running Dave after "Studs" or reruns of "M*A*S*H" on the 28th. If you live in a market that normally carries Dave on a delayed basis, this would be an excellent opportunity for you to write station management and tell them how much you're enjoying watching the show at this 'new' time." (Letterman News #1, Feb. 17, 1994) That's how it started, five years ago -- a David Letterman fansheet, reborn a few days later as LATE SHOW NEWS. Back then, I put the lineups in the front, the news and commentary in the back: "We sure hope former NBC late-show host TOM SNYDER is enjoying his week in the sun. He deserves it. Big, bombastic, and wonderfully unhip Snyder has been the focus of attention since a columnist for the New York Daily News 'confirmed' that CBS and David Letterman's people had asked Tom to host the new program, to be produced by Worldwide Pants, that would follow Dave at 12:35 a.m ... Tom [has] a long-term deal with CNBC, where flanked by some of our day's most notorious second-rate t.v. personalities, he has total command over the pond. Still, cable has shown us that there's plenty of life in the guy, and led to a Snyder renaissance of sorts." (Late Show News #2, Feb. 22, 1994) There was a lot going on in late-night, and LATE SHOW NEWS spent months trying to harness it all and get in front of the curve. Mere weeks before Arsenio Hall announced his departure from talk, I wrote: "It is clear that 'The Arsenio Hall Show' has lost its early sparkle, probably for good. While it might be a solid moneymaking vehicle for Hall Productions, Arsenio would be well advised to revamp it soon. He has apparently prepared all of his life to do talk t.v., since he first got hooked on the Carson show as a boy in a Cleveland ghetto. But that was before he ever dreamed of pulling in a $12 million salary. Having learned a lot about sacrifice growing up, it may be time for Arsenio Hall to put his nose to the grindstone again and reinvent the program that, as much as the Letterman show, made late-night television in the post-Carson era." (LSN #7, Apr. 29, 1994) I did a three-parter on Ted Koppel: "Koppel realizes that he and his friendly rival Letterman are part of a vanishing breed, that of the old-fashioned t.v. broadcaster. Dave reaches into his 1950s grab bag for wholesome entertainment ideas and cultivates a Garry Moore geniality to win over his new, larger audience, while Ted unapologetically speaks to the holders of power and the central figures in stories that tens of millions are following. And both of them fear, quite rightly, for their collective future as beacons to the masses. ... An interactive future with hundreds of televised choices available to the individual will doom t.v. and with it, Koppel believes, the last semblance of mass media in this country." (LSN #22, July 19, 1994) Recounting the 1988 Writers Guild strike that forced David Letterman to anchor several weeks of his show without writers, I wrote: "It must have been grueling work, especially given his perfectionistic streak, although characteristically he mocked himself on the air when, after doing a month's worth of new shows, he took another week off. Yet we recently had occasion to watch a number of those episodes from July and August of '88, and in them Letterman is simply at the top of his form as a broadcaster. "Despite their painfully bad Top Tens (Dave would get about six or seven written down and then fill the rest of the slots with 'Not available due to writers' strike') and techie binges (abundant use of Hal Gurnee's Network Time Killers and special cams, including one program shot from 13 different angles), these shows stand out largely on the strength of Dave's opening segments. In one, he spends ten minutes recounting a speeding ticket issued to him the night before at, of all places, LAX airport. Three such segments over consecutive evenings are spent being fitted on-air for a new suit. ... It's not that the show is any less prepared than before, but without so many cars on the freeway, and the relentless push of jokes waiting to be told, the ride is different, smoother, perhaps more exhilarating. "Not that we are complaining about this first season on CBS; it's been a trip all right, though more like one on a roller coaster. Many recent shows, however, have seemed to be running on synthetic zip, an orchestrated hurly-burly of items that fly away from the host and hit nothing in particular. ... Some nights, what 'Late Show' could use is a sedative that would bring its metabolism down to the level of a writers' strike. More stories, like Dave's hilarious recounting a while back of his trip to the White House to visit the Clintons. More time chatting with Paul -- we miss that especially." (LSN #24, Aug. 2, 1994) On the passing of the first late-night host, Jerry Lester of "Broadway Open House," I wrote: "The comedy-variety show was NBC's ticket to the top of the burgeoning new medium of t.v. In addition to 'Broadway Open House,' there was Uncle Miltie, the 'Colgate Comedy Hour' and perhaps the biggest phenomenon of them all, 'Your Show of Shows,' which by 1952 was being watched by nearly everyone with a set. The word 'Broadway' was probably strategic ... During his years of quixotic battle with the Ed Sullivan show, Steve Allen would brag that he was putting on a 'Broadway-quality show every week.' Pat Weaver claimed that what America saw when they tuned in to _Your Show of Shows_ 'was better than most of the Broadway comedies.' "As television grew in stature and power, it no longer had to bother with comparisons to other cultural icons, for it had become the defining icon irrespective of the quality of its content. But by then Jerry Lester, and for that matter Steve Allen, had moved on, each of them convinced that richer horizons loomed ahead. Apropos of their places in the evolution of t.v., Allen left to try creating his own 'show of shows' on Sunday nights, while Lester returned to the theater and to standup comedy -- that is, relative oblivion." (LSN #57, March 28, 1995) A few weeks after Jay Leno passed Dave Letterman in the late-night ratings: "Some might say there have been numerous distractions to account for 'Late Show's' poor performance of late, ranging from the loss of Dave's agent (now Disney prez) Mike Ovitz to the disappearance of CBS's prime-time audience. But these are just morsels for the entertainment press; they aren't actual impediments to creativity. One factor, however, just might be: Dave is doing too damned many shows. During eleven and a half seasons at NBC, Letterman averaged 160 broadcasts a year, or forty weeks times four with twelve weeks' vacation. And he did this while working for the King of Late Night, who taped even fewer shows. So long as Johnny ruled the roost, it was understood that network talent didn't work on Mondays (or Fridays, in the case of Letterman's first few seasons). Let the pretenders bust their butts five nights a week. That changed when Jay Leno took over and his manager and producer, Helen Kushnick, decided to make a clean break with the Carson years. ... "Result: excepting Greg Kinnear, everybody is now doing 220 broadcasts per year, a third more than Carson's average ... Inevitably, the chore of filling the sixty additional hours of t.v. time has fallen to repetitive as opposed to creative devices, like O'Brien's 'Clutch Cargo' moving lips or Letterman characters Mujibur and Sirajul -- sticks of gum that lost their flavor long ago." (LSN #76, Aug. 22, 1995) Weeks after I wrote this, "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" announced a four-tapings-per-week schedule. "As if to test the loyalty of the many female viewers who now watch Dave since he jumped to 11:35 and CBS, the 'Late Show' is regularly airing material that would once have earned its writers the charge of sexism. It's a charge not leveled lightly, and I've shrugged off letters sent in recent months by readers peeved at Dave's treatment of female guests. On the other hand, here we are, beginning the third season of the new improved Letterman, and he's *still* cracking jokes about Janet Reno." (LSN #79, Sept. 19, 1995) On HBO's "The Late Shift": "This film is a four-star disappointment, a bewildering mess of Machiavellian intrigue and sitcom stupidity that might best be compared to recent 'SNL' broadcasts, with their high production values, questionable premises, and shockingly poor execution. In an irony that is becoming sadly too commonplace in this decade, HBO has produced a movie about two comedians, done by two comedic talents, producer Ivan ('Ghostbusters', 'Dave') Reitman and director Betty ('Dream On') Thomas -- and it is painfully unfunny." (LSN #93, Jan. 9, 1996) Dateline Pasadena: NBC announces to TV critics that Conan O'Brien is getting his first long-term extension. "Conan is finally getting showered with unrestrained hosannas for the first time on 'Late Night.' He will air an anniversary special -- another first -- for his Sept. 13 show, and that almost certainly will lead to prime-time anniversary gigs in years to come. Fame, which has been doing a cute fandango with him, now seems to be wanting to go cheek-to-cheek. Will fame change his show from a comedy playpen into a joke mill? Will his unusually good people skills be increasingly used to ingratiate himself to reporters instead of keeping staff morale buoyed? You know what outcome I'm rooting for." (LSN #117, July 16, 1996) "After nearly two years of uninspiring ratings, 'Rush Limbaugh the Television Show,' which earned a reputation as a Teflon program incapable of preserving its lead-in audience, will cease production Sept. 6. 'I've been pushed later and later and in the process lost a lot of potential audience,' moaned Limbaugh last week in announcing his departure. Fact is, however, that the show has been scheduled at nearly every daypart, with lead-ins ranging from talk shows to tabloids to true-crime strips and yet, as station managers have testified to me over the years, no matter where you put Rush, it seems only the Dittoheads will watch him." (LSN #118, July 23, 1996) "Doe-eyed and impeccably well groomed, Craig Kilborn, the former ESPN anchor turned Weekend Update wannabe on Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show,' knows how to turn on the smarm. Offering his nightly unsolicited promotion for daytime talker 'Caryl & Marilyn: Best Friends,' Kilborn never tires of telling us that they really *are* friends, adding, with a glint in his eye, 'And that's why it just might work.' Delivering one of his mock sermonettes, he is bursting with fake sincerity. 'De-tassel your cars,' he urges recent high-school graduates. 'Go back and get that community college degree. I believe in you!' Right. "While Dennis Miller, the standard by which all faux newscasters are judged, revels in playing the angry outsider, the polished and cheeky Kilborn takes a decidedly establishmentarian tack. That, and the show's inspired mix of smart-ass material from Lizz Winstead and her crack staff of writers, help this new half-hour topical comedy series stand apart from its late-night peers." (LSN #122, Aug. 27, 1996) "No comedian currently performing owes as much to Johnny Carson as Bill Maher; his light body English is such a contrast to Conan's physical jerks, Jay's nervous pacing, and Dave's huge, amphitheater-style gestures. ... Interestingly, the most serious complaint against Maher I'm hearing this week has more to do with his demeanor off-camera than on. He is not, shall we say, a very personable guy. ... "Sooner or later, [critics] say, this meanness will surface on the air and will scare viewers off. I'm not so sure. True, today's up-close-and-personal entertainment media virtually ensures we get to see the stars with all their blemishes. But 'PI's' target audience has been reading dishy celebrity exposes for years, and by this point in time, being an asshole probably rates far down their list of t.v. star sins. A similar story describing 'The Rosie O'Donnell Show' as behind-the-scenes hell appears in the latest New York Observer; but most of the staffers cited in the piece admit they find Rosie truly is wonderful on camera, and isn't that what it's all about anyway?" (LSN #138, Jan. 13, 1997) "Fifteen years ago, on July 28, 1982, David Letterman put on a talk show, and a wrestling match broke out. Andy Kaufman, a singular figure in entertainment whose antics both on and off the tube were already legendary, struck a blow for performance art, or rather received one, when he was clobbered by pro wrestler Jerry Lawler during a taping of Letterman's new late-night talk show on NBC. On the same date in 1987, Letterman himself was in the line of fire as a segment with the actor Crispin Glover disintegrated into a kicking exhibition, with one foot coming very near Letterman's pricey head. "To this day, no one is really sure how much of either incident was staged or spontaneous. But the four players had in common -- Glover and Lawler, Letterman and Kaufman -- were not naive. They knew that few things in life are more staged than a television broadcast. Yet they surely realized there is no more effective or compelling theater than the live TV show where all of the elements are in perfect harmony. Or in this case, perfect discord." (LSN #163, July 29, 1997) "I don't know about you, but I'm really starting to tire of [Charles] Grodin's performance-art shtick, now well into its third low-visibility season. In case you missed it, Dave appeared on Grodin's CNBC talker Wednesday, but not before the host delivered about an, oh, 20-minute intro, then had Dave on for two segments, one and half of which were spent asking him the type of question that would be particularly of interest to an immigration agent. Grodin said nothing entertaining during the interview and gave Dave few if any chances to say anything entertaining. Afterwards, host said goodnight to guest and to his Mom. Good night, Chuck ..." (LSN #170, Sept. 16, 1997) "Filmmaker and gonzo journalist Michael Moore has made a career out of getting his camera crews thrown out of corporate headquarters. But Monday night he dared a studio audience to throw him out -- of his own TV talk show, no less. During a taping of a late-night talk show in New York, an unscheduled pilot for the Fox network, Moore announced he was bringing out a 'special guest' -- none other than O.J. Simpson, football great and infamous trial defendant ... If the Fox network ever decides to do 'World's Scariest Talk Show Appearances,' this one is a cinch to get in." (LSN #180, Nov. 18, 1997) "I'm hard pressed to pick which was the dumber move: NBC's decision to oust Norm MacDonald as the guy who reads the fake news on 'Saturday Night Live' or Comedy Central's firing-slash-allowing the departure of Lizz Winstead as head writer and chief creative spark on 'The Daily Show.' But I do know this: Neither show will be the same as a result." (LSN #186, Jan. 13, 1998) Following Howard Stern's hijacking of Magic Johnson's talk show: "That broadcast of 'The Magic Hour' will go down as one of the great moments of infamy in late night, right up there with Helen Kushnick cancelling a 'Tonight Show' broadcast and the first-ever 'Chevy Chase Show.' "What amazes me even now, several days after the fact, is the extraordinary stupidity of Earvin Johnson and his 'people' for extending the invite to Stern, and then not withdrawing it despite learning what Stern planned to do on the show. He had demanded that his 'band,' The Losers, be allowed to perform their flatulent version of 'Wipe Out' as a condition for doing the show. He said he would tell the host exactly what he thought of 'The Magic Hour,' a show he'd been roasting without mercy for three weeks on the radio. Stern told his radio audience that he would embarrass Johnson on the air. And they let him do the show anyway! The whole show!" (July 7, 1998) On Canada's "Open Mike with Mike Bullard": "What's really impressive about this show is how much of it Bullard fills with unscripted material -- and how consistently hi-grade are his ad libs. During Wednesday's broadcast, after an especially tasteless Clinton joke failed to elicit the correct audience response, Bullard said, "It's at times like this I'd like to remind you that we're all Canadians." (LSN #221, Oct. 13, 1998) "It seems unlikely that we'll look back at the past seven years of overnight network news with any great nostalgia. But it is passing quietly from the scene, at least as its own distinct news entity, so this is as good a time as any to remember it. While fonder memories may be reserved for the 'NBC News Overnight,' which signed off 15 years ago, the overnight news programs of the '90s had their own quiet appeal as one of the last places on network TV where news remained a work in progress." (LSN #228, Dec. 15, 1998) *** Overnight news might be the best analogy for what I produced in five years of LATE SHOW NEWS, a work in progress if there ever was one. Nearly every week I would be up into the wee hours getting one of these issues out -- 250 of them, roughly, in five years -- and while I never made a dime e-mailing them to my subscribers, it was one of the best investments of time I've ever made. From the beginning of this experiment in Internet journalism, I was dependent on the support and advice and tips I received every day through e-mail. Above all, I want to thank three people. At around noon on Feb. 17, 1994, I posted the first issue of LETTERMAN NEWS from my desk at my real-estate job in Chicago. Four hours later I received this e-mail:
Aaron, I love LETTERMAN NEWS!! Keep 'em coming. Actual useful and interesting info is a rare and wonderful thing on the 'net. --S.
That was the beginning of what has become a wonderful friendship with Sue Trowbridge, the person responsible for the late-night lineups at the back of every issue of LATE SHOW NEWS that followed. The early feedback I received from Sue and a handful of others encouraged me to rename the zine and begin issuing it every Tuesday. A month after I launched LSN I got an e-mail from a freelance writer named Richard Gehr. He had seen my stuff on the WELL and wanted to write 200 words on me for the Village Voice. Then, he changed his mind. He thought *I* should write for the Village Voice. As it happened I was going to New York at the end of the month to see a "Late Show" taping. We met with his editor, Jeff Salamon, and that's how my first print assignment came about. Richard saw potential in me before anyone else did and for that he has my eternal gratitude. The third person I must thank is the former Diane Carlson. She didn't immediately grasp that this little online vocation of mine would burgeon into a career, but soon she began cheering me on. More importantly, after we married and made a home for ourselves, she gave me permission to quit my drudge job -- so to speak -- and write full-time. I wouldn't be where I am now had she not made that leap of faith. Actually, a lot of life is made up of leaps of faith. Other people who deserve recognition here: Don Giller, aka Donz5, has supplied me with more information than anyone else. He also let me write 2,000 words about him for the Voice in 1995. Tom Heald, Tom Roche, Harrison Wyman and Mark Evanier also contributed mightily. Those who sent me words of encouragement in those first few days of LATE SHOW NEWS included Steve Pace, David W. Fields, Mary Ballard, Scott Barvian, Val Dodge, Shawn Trexler, and from the "Late Show" Rick Scheckman, who's still there, and Chris Schomer, who's not. Bob Rossney, then doing an online column for the San Francisco Chronicle, was the first to actually write me up. Marc Gunther and Bill Carter got me into two sections of the New York Times. Bill, of course, also supplied the intellectual stimulus for that first LETTERMAN NEWS (his book "The Late Shift" had just been released). Jim Windolf gave me a break at the New York Observer after Richard Gehr pointed me to him. George Schweitzer at CBS was the first network executive to open his door to me. Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, Robert Morton, Rob Burnett, Jeff Ross, Scott Carter and Peter Lassally were generous with their time before I ever went "legit." I was introduced to Jon Stewart at a taping of "Politically Incorrect" and he instantly recalled the nice review of his syndicated show I'd written two years earlier. I can't recall an encounter that so impressed and flattered the hell out of me as that one. Tom Snyder and I had a very pleasant chat in L.A. in 1996. Yeah, I overreacted to his form letter passing on all media requests. Happy retirement, Tom. Lastly, thanks to all of you for reading, sending e-mail and telling your friends about me. I feel very lucky to have had you as my audience this half decade, and I hope you'll continue to be with me over at the TV Barn. There is more to say about this very charmed time, these last five years that changed my life, but I should save some of it for my *own* retirement. And anyway, it's late and so is this issue. So drive safely, and we'll see you here next time.

Why I love March Madness

March 11--The second Thursday and Friday of March remain a special time to me -- and trust me, it doesn't have that much to do with college basketball. Oh sure, I can get behind an underdog team like Weber State, or just as easily sit back and admire the commitment to athletic and academic excellence that is Duke. But those sentiments are really reserved for later in the month, when the field is narrowing to manageable numbers that come with their own alliteratives: Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight, Final Four. No, what makes these first two days special is that it remains one of the singular events in broadcast television: ten hours each day covering all 32 first-round games, no matter how seemingly insignificant, a flurry of cutaways, "live look-ins" and highlights unmatched on this scale anywhere else on broadcast. (Here's the complete CBS schedule.) Yes, this kind of coverage is old hat at ESPN and Fox -- but they don't have anything on this scale to match what CBS has. For now. ALSO: As perhaps a counterpoint to the above, I've also read -- and highly recommend -- the Kansas City Star's investigation into the NCAA, led by our Pulitzer- and Polk-award-winning projects chief Mike McGraw. The NCAA series won a Polk Award in 1997. Read the series I also recommend Rick Telander's updated classic on why he quit the Sports Illustrated college football beat, The Hundred Yard Lie. A printable NCAA tourney bracket from CBS SportsLine (3/11)

Things that make you go (gasp)

March 9--How the hell far in advance do they publish Parade magazine anyway? The widely-circulated Sunday newspaper supplement printed a full-page profile of movie critic Roger Ebert in its March 7 edition -- and the article referred to his late former sidekick Gene Siskel as "taking a break" and "taking it easy," even though Siskel died two weeks ago. James Brady obviously wrote the piece after Siskel had announced he was taking indefinite leave from his movie-reviewing duties in early February. Siskel passed Feb. 20 of complications related to brain surgery in 1998, but Parade apparently went to press before anyone could remove the embarrassing references. Am I the only one who thinks it peculiar that a newspaper section should be set in stone two full weeks before insertion -- even one with a nationwide distribution like Parade? AND THERE'S THIS from reader Chris Friedrich: "Parade magazine isn't the only mag that doesn't read the papers. This week's TV Guide just published a note about Siskel taking a break for awhile." Thanks to reader Greg Gerke for pointing out the Parade gaffe. (3/9)

The "Greaseman" debacle

I received an e-mail on Feb. 9 from Anne Raugh, who was in the audience the night before as "Politically Incorrect" taped the first of five shows that week originating from Washington, D.C. Anne wrote, "For some reason that was never clear to me, 'The Greaseman' and a handful of his entourage were working the audience line outside the theater with hastily hand-lettered protest signs. The gist of the garbled complaints seemed to be that 'the Greaseman' had been denied a place on any of the Washington panels. Only his own station seemed to even give a damn, but I was wondering just what made him think he deserved a seat in the first place." Today, of course, "Politically Incorrect" might consider Doug "The Greaseman" Tracht very seriously as a guest, but not for the reasons Tracht originally envisioned. Earlier this month, "The Greaseman," a longtime fixture on the Washington, D.C., radio scene, was fired after playing a clip of Lauryn Hill's music on the air, then joking that no wonder "they" get dragged behind trucks -- an appalling reference to the killing of a black man by white supremacists in Jasper, Tex. Now "the Greaseman" is on a nationwide "apology tour" to make amends for his ill-chosen ad-lib. The tour last week included a "Nightline" broadcast on which an industry expert told ABC's Chris Bury that Tracht's firing will probably increase his value in the radio marketplace. After all, "the Greaseman" is a talented guy, as even Ted Koppel was forced to admit last week. (Koppel told Tracht he used to let his daughters listen to "the Greaseman" in the car while driving them to school.) And good talent is hard to find. In fact, it's highly likely that Tracht's next employer will be the same as the last: CBS, which is one of a shrinking number of radio groups that are consolidating the industry. As Harrison Wyman notes, "WARW-FM, a classic rock station where Tracht worked, is owned by CBS. So is WPGC-FM,the top-rated radio station in Washington with a hip-hop format that regularly plays Lauryn Hill's music." (3/8)

Fresh Step keeps it unreal

(March 8, 1999) Last Wednesday, the phony sensation that's poppin' the nation made their second appearance on "Late Show with David Letterman." They performed their alleged hit "Talk to the Hand," not to be confused with the companion hit, "Don't Talk to the Hand (Girl, Talk to the Heart)," which they performed recently on MTV's "Total Request," taped about 10 blocks away. The song ended with the most blatant website plug in TV history for http://www.fresh-step.com, their supposedly "official" website. Again Letterman introduced them as a legit act. Again he held up a CD that allegedly contained the group's work (soundtrack to the movie Talk to the Hand, allegedly starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and James Van Der Beek). As Tom Heald notes, "You gotta love 'Late Show's' strategic use of Fresh Step on Wednesday night. Think about it: on a night when 'Nightline' has the world's best lead-in (the Lewinsky interview), Letterman's bookers offer us Kid Turkey Callers, Mark Wahlberg, and Fresh Step ... i.e., only one real guest." Not to be outdone by the real parody, Marilyn Sargent and others have created their own Fresh Step parody fansites. Link to them all or go directly to the funniest one. (March 8, 1999) RELATED: Fresh Step returns to Letterman show

The new late-night fight

It appears we may have the makings of a new battle in late night. Forget about Leno vs. Letterman -- now it's Conan vs. Dave. In their grand press release last week crowing about NBC's total victory in the February ratings "sweep," executives at the network chose to highlight the fact that, for the first time ever, "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" beat "Late Show with David Letterman" in a key demographic category -- adults ages 18-34. It's quite a milestone considering that Conan's show airs one hour later than Dave's. "Late Night" is also a whisker away from tying or surpassing "Late Show" in adults 18-49 and could conceivably challenge someday in adults 25-54. Some nights, Conan even beats Dave outright in total viewers.Read the whole story Even more ominous are these numbers that weren't included in NBC's press release: Since the 1993-94 season, Letterman has lost half his audience. He averaged a 5.8 rating (percentage of total U.S. households) five years ago and is pulling a 2.9 so far in 1999. Meanwhile O'Brien has increased his rating 40 percent in that time, from 1.5 to 2.1. And that's even before NBC factors in the estimated million or two viewers catching "Late Night" from their dorm lounges or bars (as NBC did in the 1980's when selling Letterman's show to advertisers). NBC also seems to be paying more attention to its 12:35 man in its on-air promos. Those nightly 30-second prime-time spots now carve out an extra few seconds and use actual video clips for "Late Night." For years, all the show would get on the promos was a rushed tagline: AndtonightConan'sgotBenStiller! I can understand the extra attention for O'Brien; in fact he deserves more of than he's getting even now. But what's the deal with the Letterman comparison? Many of us are familiar with the huge lift Dave gave Conan by returning to "Late Night" as a guest on Feb. 28, 1994. Why the bitterness? The two men compete in approximately zero percent of the country. NBC's tactic probably has something to do with the fact that in less than a month two network comedy-variety programs will go head-to-head in the 12:35 a.m. time slot for the first time. On March 30, Craig Kilborn will sign on as the new host of CBS's "The Late Late Show," replacing the retiring Tom Snyder. In stark contrast to Snyder's cozy conversations with his guests and callers, Kilborn and Co. will produce a show with plenty of topical humor and comedy sketches. There will be a small studio audience, something anathema to Snyder ever since NBC executives forced one on him during the "Tomorrow Show" overhaul of 1980. Kilborn's show won't likely be confused with O'Brien's; no sidekick or band, and Kilborn isn't known for his Seventies pop-cultural references. In fact, many critics early on may be looking more for resemblances between "Late Late Show" and "The Daily Show," which starred Kilborn on Comedy Central. Nevertheless, there will be one area in which O'Brien and Kilborn will be unable to avoid constant comparison: the ratings. That, I suspect, is what's really behind NBC's PR front. Even before Snyder's show launched in 1995, he and O'Brien were agreed that any notion of a rivalry between such divergent programs was preposterous. In time, that truce benefited Conan as Tom's show was stigmatized as a little-watched throwback that appealed mainly to older viewers. Now with Kilborn, NBC wants to keep CBS isolated at 12:35, even though the format change and new young host would suggest a direct assault being made on Conan's audience. If I were handicapping this, I'd say NBC's chances of succeeding with its evil plan are very good. Consider that "Late Late Show" remains at a huge disadvantage in live clearances -- that is, in stations that will air the show at its god-given time of 12:35 a.m. Eastern/Pacific, 11:35 Central/Mountain. Most CBS affiliates that aren't clearing the show live are unlikely to change course anytime soon; Kansas City's KCTV has the "Seinfeld" franchise at 11:35 for the next two and a half years. CBS could abandon the household race and simply focus on how Kilborn does with key demographics, as it does in claiming moral victories for Howard Stern. In this it will succeed, probably, because Snyder's current young-adult rating is low. But maybe not: Stern's show, after all, airs primarily on non-CBS affiliates, many of them independents that appeal to younger viewers at other times of the day. Kilborn, meanwhile, will find his show promoted during CBS prime time, when the typical viewer is in her mid-to-late 30's and 40's (and actually the median viewer age is 50-plus). Letterman's staff, as we've reported here in the past, feels CBS prime time is of little to no help in getting the word out about Dave's show to his target audience, because Dave's target audience doesn't watch CBS. Much of the time they're watching ABC and NBC, where the relationship between the networks' prime-time performance and subsequent late-night ratings are apparent, as anyone who's ever glanced the Thursday overnights for NBC knows. All in all, Kilborn will be fortunate to settle in at the 1.5-1.6 Nielsen rating of Snyder, and if he can exceed a 1.0 rating among young adults he'll be doing fine (Snyder's below 1.0). More likely he will come in below those targets and find himself in competition with NBC's "Later," a show that, you got it, airs one hour later than his, while NBC sets its sights on promoting O'Brien as the heir to Letterman's throne and the heir apparent to Leno's time slot (if and when, that is, Jay decides to step down). Of course, if Kilby knocks out a week of kick-ass shows and gets all the TV critics on his side, forget I said anything. (March 8, 1999)

Articles for the week of March 15, 1999

Heeeeeere's Oscar

Note! All times listed below are CENTRAL. March 19--If it seems the Oscars are becoming more outsized with each passing year, that may have less to do with the event than with the media coverage surrounding the Academy Awards telecast. The amount of TV coverage devoted to Oscar continues to grow -- fueled by ABC, which is adding pre- and post-ceremony shows this year; and E!, which is offering 11 hours of coverage Sunday, the most yet for the cable channel. The pre-shows: The ceremonies begin in earnest at 8:30. Host Whoopi Goldberg is joined presenters Ben Affleck, Kim Basinger, Annette Bening, Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey (who gave a memorable acceptance speech at the Golden Globe Awards), Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro, Harrison Ford, Andy Garcia, Goldie Hawn, Anne Heche, Helen Hunt, Val Kilmer, Jennifer Lopez, Sophia Loren, Steve Martin, Liam Neeson, Jack Nicholson (who always seems to give memorable speeches), Gwyneth Paltrow, Chris Rock, Uma Thurman, John Travolta, Liv Tyler, Denzel Washington and why-haven't-they-made-him-host-yet Robin Williams. Musical numbers will be performed by Dion, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Peter Gabriel, Randy Newman, Andrea Bocelli, Allison Moorer and Aerosmith. Moments after the Best Picture trophy is handed out around midnight, E!'s three-hour post-show begins from the Governor's Ball and other Oscar parties around L.A. It will be joined 30 minutes later -- following your ABC affiliate's late news -- by "The Politically Incorrect After Party," which looks to be a great idea. Borrowing on the post-Oscar broadcasts Tom Snyder used to put on, Bill Maher will convene an eclectic panel to offer immediate reactions to the night's proceedings. Among the panelists: Rod Steiger, an outspoken critic of the academy's decision to honor director Elia Kazan. "Mr. Show's" Bob Odenkirk and David Cross will supply reports from around town, and Marvin Hamlisch will play the piano.

"edTV"


Matthew McConaughey and Jenna Elfman find the camera an unwelcome eyewitness to their attempts at romance in "edTV" (Photo: Universal Studios). March 17--We have been to see "edTV," the Ron Howard movie that is supposed to be nothing like "The Truman Show," the 1998 movie that starred Jim Carrey as a man whose life has been turned into a television show. I'm told, in fact, that Universal Pictures decided to give "edTV" -- which stars Matthew McConaughey as a man whose life has been turned into a television show -- a nationwide sneak preview on Saturday, so confident was the studio that audiences would tell their friends to check out "edTV" when it returns March 26, because it's nothing like "The Truman Show." Yet I can't say I was entirely surprised when, about halfway through "edTV," I realized the movie I was watching was uncannily just like watching "The Truman Show." That's not to say I wouldn't recommend it; Ron Howard's new movie is a lot of fun, with plenty of high-quality comedy writing and savvy observations about pop culture, the media and the people who shape the media. "edTV" is also a whole lot more buttoned-down than "The Truman Show," which in some ways is like "Gattaca," the super-serious futuristic film from the writer of "The Truman Show," Andrew Niccol. (You can link to my "Truman" review at the end of this article.) But in the end, they both make the same point: We are rapidly approaching a new horizon of voyeurism on TV, in which it becomes possible for TV life and our own lives to integrate seamlessly, while the world looks on. There's some plausibility to the claim. After all, if ABC can launch a soap opera channel, it seems someone should be able to cobble together a 24-hour talk show channel, devoted solely to the exploitation of other people's problems. Think of it: thousands of old "Jerry Springer," "Sally Jessy Raphael" and "Jenny Jones" shows congealing into an unending web of other people's fascinating, dysfunctional and ultimately pathetic lives.
Woody Harrelson's relationship with Matthew McConaughey is threatened when his younger brother's life turns into "edTV" (Photo: Universal Studios). Still, both movies have to stretch to make their point. Truman is hermetically sealed from outside society, so that his pleasant, 1950's-grade suburban life can go on forever. But in "edTV," Ed Pekurny agrees to let his life be captured live by TV cameras in exchange for the kind of pay that normally doesn't come the way of a 31-year-old video store clerk. So while it takes several hours of backstage coaching to create each hour of "Jerry Springer," "edTV" suggests it may be possible to keep dysfunction fresh and entertaining in real time and the real world -- or at least the "real" world as defined by Ed Pekurny. And by the way, current events question here: What is reality when you are shadowed at all times by two cameras, a live truck and a swarm of onlookers? When your first sexual encounter with a tempting woman is viewed by millions? (Remember, the characters in this movie are "purely fictional"!) Ed Pekurny is not a man who philosophizes on such questions; indeed the only person in this movie who seems to give a damn about the whole process is the TV executive who thought up "edTV" in the first place (Ellen DeGeneres, in a wickedly good role that will surely get the telephone ringing again at the DeGeneres-Heche abode). But it is awhile before she has her epiphany. In the meantime, Ed's life -- which fairly gushed out at first, hooking a diverse group of viewers that include a gay couple in Manhattan and co-eds in Iowa -- is starting to plateau. By this time, however, Ed is on board with the show's producers, holding late-night conferences to discuss storylines, characters, Nielsen ratings, contract extensions. Suddenly Ed has become "the face in the crowd," to borrow from the title of Elia Kazan's 1957 movie about an Arthur Godfrey type who uses folksy on-air charm to advance his ruthless political agenda. Only now there's really no need to get politics mixed up in this. Television is the purer form of control, because people don't even realize it's controlling them. They're just watching TV. As in "The Truman Show," the whole experiment is followed closely by the hoi polloi and literati alike. There is a Greek chorus commenting on the whole charade in "edTV," notably Jay Leno (see below) and a talk-show panel that includes Michael Moore, Harry Shearer, George Plimpton, Arianna Huffington and my favorite, Merrill Markoe (who -- hooray! -- gets the last line in the whole movie). Shearer, of course, played a suspiciously similar role in "The Truman Show." So then, the time has arrived to answer the question so clearly begged by "edTV" (and in a more allegorical fashion by "The Truman Show"): Could something like this happen in our own time? Sure it could! But would anybody really pay as much attention as is paid to Ed Pekurny or Truman Burbank? Doubtful. And the reason is that it won't be a cable network putting this person's life on display, and it won't be with equipment anywhere near as bulky or attention-getting as the equipment used to create "edTV." More likely it will be a small, handheld DVCPRO camera transmitting images via wireless modem to a nearby RealVideo server and then broadcast to the Internet. Ron Howard demonstrates here he knows a lot about TV production, and I'm certainly not going to question his caricatures of TV executives. But none of these people will be even remotely in the picture once the real "edTV" launches. And that's ultimately why "edTV" can't be put in the category of "Network" or "Face in the Crowd." Those classic films helped us see beyond the present to a destructive future of our own making. Just the opposite here: To anyone remotely familiar with a webcam, these movies' futuristic vision will be instantly undermined by the knowledge of the future we're already making.

Leno's role

"edTV" also represents the latest opportunity for "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno to further blur the line between Hollywood and reality. In the movie, as part of the media tsunami building around our star, Ed makes an appearance with Leno and shows him the "famous" chicken-dance routine he performed a few days earlier on "edTV." (Here are a description and clips from the "Tonight Show's" website.) Fast forward to Tuesday night (March 16). The real Matthew McConaughey appears with the real Jay Leno on the actual "Tonight Show" -- and performs the same dance in practically the same spot as he does in the movie! (This time, however, his partner is a female audience member.) For Leno, this form of mind boggle is nothing new: By our count (and with a little help from the Internet Movie Database), this marks the 12th motion picture in which Leno has appeared as host of the "Tonight Show," essentially in the same role, as a sort of Greek chorus commenting on the events of the movie. More precisely, he's a Menander or Aristophanes -- a comic voice speaking out against life's absurdities, a chin jutting out in mock resistance of those who deviate from the norm, which in Hollywood's m.o. almost always means ridiculing the star of the movie. Beyond the essential cultural medicine he dispenses, Leno gets unbeatable product placement. It's safer to make comparisons to ancient Greeks than to contemporary Americans, but I'll do it anyway. After starring in five box-office duds in the '70s, Jay Leno has learned to use the cinema to do what some once thought unthinkable: replace Johnny Carson as our national comedian. That's right. For better or worse, folks, he's our Johnny -- until Hollywood can cook up one of its own. (Photo credit for "edTV" clip: NBC)

Truth, television and 'The Truman Show'

Despite its light touch, film offers disturbing insight into how we define 'reality'
By: AARON BARNHART Television Writer (Originally published 06/11/98) From its first public appearance 60 years ago, television has been the foil of certain cultural elites. In TV, filmmakers and others have seen a propaganda device like none before, a strobing pacifier of the masses on which the future of civilization might hang. "The Truman Show," director Peter Weir's unsettling fable about a society obsessed with TV, continues in that tradition. But what sets it apart from earlier films of its genre - notably Elia Kazan's "A Face in the Crowd" and Paddy Chayefsky's "Network" - is its extraordinarily light touch. Those earlier critiques suggested that Americans would let a mad prophet or a folksy Arthur Godfrey-type lead them by the eyeballs. "The Truman Show" makes no such claim about Truman Burbank, Jim Carrey's cheerful innocent whose life since birth has been televised to an adoring world. We might not want to follow Truman, but we are willing to be distracted by him. And isn't that the Achilles heel of a society built on personal freedom and technological progress? Not that we'll hand over our freedom to a single ominous agent, but rather that we'll invent or discover a hundred different excuses to fritter it away, like so much jingle-jangle-jingle in our pockets? Weir, an Australian, and screenwriter Andrew Niccol, a New Zealand native, seem to have grasped this notion better than most Americans, and they lay it out in "The Truman Show" (the story line of which - reader beware - is revealed in the paragraphs to follow). Even more remarkable than Carrey's performance as Truman Burbank is the unpretentious, whimsical dungeon that Weir and Niccol have created for him. Seahaven is a hermetically sealed, planned-down-to-the-second community staffed with hundreds of extras and monitored by thousands of hidden cameras - all arranged around Truman and his every step, and in turn watched by millions of viewers worldwide. Yet the creepiness of Seahaven never begins to approach that of Stepford, that other happy town of movie myth. For one thing, there are cracks a-plenty in Seahaven's plaster. When a klieg light comes crashing down from the heavens just a few yards from Truman's driveway, the local media spend the next 24 hours explaining it away in a hilarious bit of spin control. Truman's wife and "best friend" are also on hand to concoct fabulous lies whenever the star of the show has the slightest inkling into the vast conspiracy around him. That conspiracy is directed, literally, by a TV director named Christof (played by Ed Harris in what might be considered a demented turn on his mission-control character in "Apollo 13"). Christof really is creepy, which may explain why we don't hear much from him during the first hour of "The Truman Show. " He does, however, appear in the opening talking-heads sequence of the movie to expound on the philosophy, and the hypocrisy, behind the Truman show. "We're bored with actors giving us phony emotions," Christof says. "While his environment is somewhat counterfeit, there's nothing phony about Truman. " It's a breathtakingly arrogant claim - that the phony emotions of hundreds of actors are obviated by one man's guileless responses. And yet, if there's one prophetic statement in the movie, it is this one. Already several commentators have noted how the viewers who are glued to Truman are a lot like Americans who watch "reality-based" shows and daytime talk shows today. "The Truman Show," however, asks us to imagine a new TV form that combines the verite feel of a reality show with the human passion served up by Jerry Springer. In envisioning the logical extension of our TV appetites, "The Truman Show" has a common bond with "Network," perhaps the finest statement ever made about the social perils of television. According to biographer Shaun Considine, Paddy Chayefsky came up with the idea for "Network" after asking himself whether the network anchors who read the evening news could "deliver this garbage without becoming physically ill. " And if not, what future projects might TV programmers have the stomach to serve up? In "Network," Chayefsky fantasized a struggling TV network that creates a huge hit when it replaces its evening news with gossip, punditry, psychic forecasts and endless opinion polls. TV people howled in protest when "Network" was released in 1976. Walter Cronkite called it a "fantasy burlesque"; Barbara Walters was disturbed by the equation of TV news and show business. Since then, of course, "Network's" predictions have largely come to pass (particularly, one might add, for Barbara Walters). Will the same be said one day of "The Truman Show"? As he did in last year's "Gattaca," which he wrote and directed, screenwriter Niccol created in "The Truman Show" a work of nonfuturistic science fiction, a not-too-distant "future" on which our own present-day foibles appear in high relief. Unlike Chayefsky, who researched "Network" by attending scores of programming meetings at NBC, director Weir doesn't seem concerned about getting every detail about American TV just right. For one thing, the ads we see in "The Truman Show" are, from an advertiser's point of view, totally inept. Betty Furness hawked refrigerators in the 1950s with greater subtlety than Truman's wife does her product placements. Niccol and Weir, however, have properly addressed the one thing about American TV that has changed since Chayefsky's time: We no longer live in a three- or four-channel universe. The notion that any one television network could have more than a fraction of viewers eating out of its hand today seems ludicrous. What "The Truman Show" argues, instead, is not that any one program will steal our soul, our imagination and our most valuable gift - our time - but that someday every program will. In the course of two generations, we have learned to escape reality through the values-affirming alternative reality of television. What Weir and Niccol want us to do, instead, is to consider looking at TV the way Truman learned to look at TV: as a values-creating alternative reality to be escaped whenever possible. It's true that Howard Beale, the mad prophet of "Network," was mad as hell. But the point often overlooked is that he wanted us to be mad as hell, to tell the world, "I'm a human being! ... My life has value! " Above all, Beale (and Chayefsky) wanted us to get up out of our chairs and turn off our TV sets. When Truman Burbank finally punctures the fourth wall of his TV existence and steps out into the real world, the Truman show is over. His worldwide audience cheers - and then changes the channel.

Ray Forrest, RIP

March 15--A real television pioneer died last week. Nobody else seems to want to pay homage, but I will, and so will Jeff Kisseloff, author of one of the truly great books on TV, The Box, who broke the news to me this weekend. On the cover of Jeff's book is a single photograph, circa 1940. It's of a handsome young announcer positioned in front of an NBC microphone -- only it appears the announcer is looking past the mic at something else. In fact, the young man isn't announcing on the radio, he's addressing a camera. He's the on-air personality at RCA's experimental TV station W2XBS, broadcasting from Rockefeller Center to 2,500 households in the greater New York area. His name is Ray Forrest. Born Ray Feuerstein in 1916, he started out at NBC at age 20 in the mailroom. From there he was hired as a tour guide and then as junior radio announcer for the network. (He took the name Forrest because no one at the network could pronounce Feuerstein.) The very first person to announce on American TV was NBC's Betty Goodwin Baker in 1936. But by 1939 she was gone and there was enough programming going on in Studio 3H that a regular announcer was needed. Forrest auditioned for and got the job. NBC had also talked Lowell Thomas into simulcasting his newscast for TV; Forrest was his makeup man. When Thomas, who mostly ignored the camera, decided to broadcast from his home, Forrest ripped and read the news for the W2XBS viewers. In 1941 the FCC issued its first commercial TV license to NBC, which renamed its station WNBT (later WNBC) and signed on July 1 with these words read by Forrest: "Tonight is the night we have been waiting for ..." Forrest was a natural for the job, Kisseloff writes in The Box -- "good-looking, friendly, and remarkably informal, compared to the stentorian announcers who [filled] the radio waves." As the television universe in New York grew to several thousand sets, Forrest began to get fan mail. People would stare at him in public. Forrest would do live remotes from boxing matches and hockey games. In 1940 a crew of 12, including Forrest, covered the Republican convention from Philadelphia. "It was the first network show. It went from Philly to New York to Schenectady. We had three cameras there, and I did everything," Forrest recalled later in an interview with Kisseloff. "We didn't have any reporters on the floor. There was just me with a printed schedule of who was going to talk. When it got quiet on the floor, I would go downstairs and interview anybody who was available. Of course there were no fancy sets. We tallied the votes for the nomination on a big piece of cardboard that was leaning against the back of a chair." Forrest was on duty Dec. 7, 1941, and announced the Pearl Harbor bombings; the following year he was drafted into the Army. When he returned after the war, as he put it, "everything was different." Television was now big time, and Forrest was no longer the only one doing it. Yet people remembered him and he had a successful career in television, hosting variety shows and later the award-winning local program "Children Television Theater." Jeff wrote me this about Forrest in an e-mail: "He was the first person to understand that as a TV personality you are being projected into people's living rooms, and that you should see yourself as a guest in people's homes, that a direct but warm manner comes across best on a TV screen. He was also a great guy." Jeff's book is a featured selection of The TV Critic's Toolbox. Archive for the week of March 22, 1999
  • Can Craig Kilborn (and producer) cut it?
  • Will high court put stops on "Cops"?
  • Tom Snyder signs off

    High court pondering stops to "Cops"

    March 26--Now who are the "bad boys"? That's what the Supreme Court of the United States is considering. At issue is whether photographers who ride along with law enforcement patrols can constitutionally barge into homes with the police officers and record what goes on inside. It seems incredible, actually, that it took 11 years since the debut of "Cops" for a privacy case related to televised police busts to reach the high court. For 11 years crews from Barbour-Langley, the production company behind "Cops," have been riding around with participating local law enforcers. It's good PR for the cops, who are invariably shown as ordinary Joes who like their jobs, their partners and the people they serve. It's a reliable, inexpensive source of raw material to Barbour-Langley, which usually requires one week of shooting to compile enough good tape for one week's episode. In 1992, a Washington, D.C.-area couple were subject to a night visit from U.S. marshals -- and a reporter, and a photojournalist. The feds were actually looking for their son, suspected to be a violent fugitive. But the couple, wqho felt the presence of cameras represented a violation of their privacy rights, sued, and federal courts have ruled both ways on the case, leaving it up to the high court to decide. (The couple that sued are from a well-to-do suburb, which raises an interesting possibility: that most people interrogated by the police in the presence of TV cameras lack the means or perhaps the sophistication to consider a privacy suit.) More coverage of the issue:

    Can Kilborn (and producer) cut it?

    That's the question posed by The New York Observer in its profile this week of "Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn" executive producer Billy Kimball. Read the story ALSO: The Minneapolis Star-Tribune's columnist C.J. accompanied Kilborn back to his hometown. Read the story ALSO: See what happens when you enter your name in the search field at Kilborn's CBS website.

    Snyder signs off

    March 25--When Tom Snyder signed on in 1973 as the host of "The Tomorrow Show," who would've guessed that a nightly TV program with a 2 a.m. sign-off time would become an institution and have millions of us clamoring for a repeat performance? Twenty years later, one of Snyder's former "Tomorrow Show" producers, Roger Ailes, thought it would be a nifty idea to bring Tom back to TV. The result was "Tom Snyder," which ran for two years on CNBC and very quickly made Snyder big fish in that cable channel's small pond. It also inspired David Letterman to make Snyder his first choice for a new 12:35 show to follow "Late Show with David Letterman" on CBS. "The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder" got off to an inauspicious start in January 1995. For one thing, the show dragged; David Sanborn's first crack at a theme song sounded like it had been cut for slow dancing at a seniors' home. And the producers hadn't learned yet to do a cold open (i.e., Tom talking) out of a commercial break. The show's first guests -- an overly eager-to-please Candice Bergen and Newt Gingrich's crusty parents -- were intriguing but ultimately lacked payoff. But there was one element that night that shined, and continued to shine for the next four years: Snyder himself. His ability to ingratiate himself with guests, his infectious laugh (which supplied so much more atmosphere than a studio audience could have) and his Jack Paar-like affection for the cute (if not clever) story made "Late Late Show" an unusual and agreeable late-night den for conversation. It would be hard to run out of guest highlights from the 700-plus tapings of Snyder's show: Harlan Ellison, Rosemary Clooney, Robert Blake, every Dennis Miller appearance, Alec Baldwin, Oscars night, Conan O'Brien, James Woods, channeler J.Z. Knight, Bob Costas and Dave Letterman's prank phone calls, just to name some. Through it all, Snyder looked and sounded as indefatigable as ever. But that, it turns out, was something of an illusion. The five-nights-a-week grind apparently got to him -- that, and perhaps having to contend with a press that had turned unfriendly in light of his show's ratings deficit to "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." (The fact that O'Brien's show enjoyed a massive advantage over Snyder's in terms of 12:35 a.m. clearances and a compatible lead-in show were rarely mentioned.) So now Snyder is calling it a career, at least as far as nightly television is concerned. This week he's having his favorite guests back to the show: Thursday it will be a first-time guest at CBS, Tom Brokaw; Friday the final guest is Dennis Miller. And there will doubtless be some final reflections from your old friend T.S. Good night, Tom, drive safely, and come back soon. (Photo credit: CBS/Worldwide Pants)

    Other tributes to Tom

    The new, improved "Howard Stern"

    March 26--After five months on the air using a documentary style of storytelling, a revamped version of "The Howard Stern Radio Show on TV" debuted last Saturday. Scott Einziger, executive producer of Stern's daily cable show on E!, has done a fast-paced radical redesign to create a high-intensity TV version of Stern's nationally syndicated radio show. Blending new graphics, animation, short segments and tight editing, the effect is a show that defies you to fast forward on tape, let alone flip channels. The only similarity between this program and Stern's old Saturday night show at New York's WWOR-TV in 1990-91 (which Einziger also produced) is its multisegment format. The first segment alone included a guess-the-answer game with a girl in a bikini top; an interview with comedian Kathy Griffin; a wrestling match between two Stern staffers; a short animated cartoon; and an argument with comedian Pat Cooper. The longest feature on the show was a seven-minute demolition of Dennis Rodman's recent press conference by Stern and his partner Robin Quivers. The revised show also has more celebrity appearances, both in studio and on the street (featuring another Stern regular, "Stuttering" John Melendez). Stern's on-air style is a combination of aggression, voyeurism, confrontation for confrontation's sake and, of course, freak show. The latter was represented in a segment called "Gary The Retard," when a young man who was obviously developmentally disabled was shown going into an upscale strip club and given a lap dance. If this was too close a veer into exploitation for your taste it literally couldn't be avoided because it was intercut into the James Woods interview. Confronting people with what makes them uncomfortable for no purpose is an essential part of the Stern m.o. The "new" show, however well-executed, alternated between funny and tasteless. Nobody knows if this will raise the Stern show's ratings, or bring back stations that are dropping the show. If you are a Stern fan, you may like the new version of his show. Others may react like Lauren Bacall, who responded to a question from a Stern producer on the street about menstruation with this question: "What on earth are you talking about, you fool?" --Harrison Wyman

    "Two Guys" I.F. (or T.G. no more Olsen twins)

    March 24--The dismantling of ABC's durable "T.G.I.F." franchise appears to be underway. With neither of its two new Friday-night sitcoms lighting up the Nielsens this year, the network has announced it will replace the Olsen twins showcase "Two of a Kind" with repeats of its surprising success, "Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place," beginning April 9. TV Barn is waiting for the other shoe to drop -- namely the yanking of "Brother's Keeper," the other Friday freshman. Throughout the Nineties "T.G.I.F." has been a magnet for teen viewers. The loss of its two long-running sitcoms, "Family Matters" and "Step by Step," to CBS in 1997 didn't hurt ABC's fortunes; in fact, CBS was forced to cancel its two acquisitions after just one season of head-to-head competition with "T.G.I.F." But in truth, ABC hadn't fared much better, cancelling "Teen Angel" and "You Wish" last season. And teen tastes have clearly shifted away from comedy and toward the dramatic quasi-soaps offered on the WB. If the adult-oriented "Two Guys" proves a hit in repeats, look for "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" and possibly "Boy Meets World" to survive as standalone shows. With this move, "Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place" gets to stay on the air while the new Peter Mehlman show "It's like, you know..." takes over its time slot starting Wednesday. It will also be a good test of "Two Guys," which has been accused of being a classic "hammock" show, filling the gap between two more critically liked sitcoms "Dharma & Greg" and "Drew Carey" on ABC's highly-rated Wednesday night schedule. The network recently ordered 22 episodes of "Two Guys" for 1999-2000 and may be using this Friday-night trial to see if the show can go it alone without relying on one of its more famous siblings. Read the news about the "Two Guys" move

    Rock on

    March 22--The 14th annual "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" induction ceremony was held in New York City Monday night and originally broadcast Wednesday night (it will repeat often). VH1's special featured Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, The Staple Singers, Billy Joel and the late Dusty Springfield and Del Shannon among the inductees. There were moving moments and joyful ones too. If you ever get into a hall of fame, have Ray Charles give your induction speech, as he did for Billy Joel. The center of the show was not the ceremony but the all-star jam session that followed. "Late Show with David Letterman" bandleader Paul Shaffer was the musical director, although with so much talent on stage he was more of a air traffic controller than conductor. The music was a little ragged but made up in emotional punch what it lacked in polish. The high point was a rendition of Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready" with an improvised opening lyric by Bono. When Paul McCartney stood at the microphone to sing "Let it Be," you could feel the passage of time, the ache of loss and the hope and renewal that music brings. -- Harrison Wyman

    Bravissimo!

    March 22--They really should've cut it by 40 minutes or so, but Sunday night's four-hour-plus Academy Awards telecast otherwise sparkled and shined and for once, delivered on the pre-show hype of uncertainty in the major categories. In the end, Roberto Benigni and Steven Spielberg were rewarded for their visions, Judi Dench and James Coburn were recognized for films they'd made in the past, and Harvey Weinstein's $6 million promotional push for "Shakespeare in Love" paid some very handsome dividends. Clearly the high point of the telecast was Benigni's Oscar for best foreign film. It's not often that the best actor award is considered an anticlimax; Benigni not only used up all of his English in the joyous aftermath of his first Oscar win, he used up most of the crowd's enthusiasm. (That less than exuberant look on the face of his wife and co-star, one assumes, has something to do with a language barrier. That, and she probably sees Benigni behave like this ten times a day.) So many other moments nearly justified the telecast's unforgivable (and record) length: Whoopi Goldberg's ongoing parade of can-you-top-this fashions. Ed Harris and Nick Nolte sitting on their hands for Elia Kazan. Genuinely touching tributes from two winners, best actress Gwyneth Paltrow and best short-documentary filmmaker Keiko Ibi. Chris Rock and Robin Williams. And Jim Carrey. And I never thought anything sung by Celine Dion would move me, but I was wrong. Still, perhaps you're more cynical than I am, in which case you'll definitely want to read Paul Harris' instant take on the Oscars at http://www.harrisonline.com (it begins: "Does anyone in the world think Whoopi Goldberg is as funny as she obviously does?"). Read the AP's account and visit the Mercury News' complete Oscars site. A link to my Sunday A-1 article on who's writing the Oscars.

    Why "Lateline" lost and "SportsNight" succeeded

    March 18--Fan as I am of Al Franken's work, I should be saddened by the announcement that his "Lateline" is now "really most sincerely dead." And I might actually be sad were it not for the other announcement of the week -- ABC's "SportsNight" has been renewed. For "SportsNight" manages to be everything "Lateline" never could quite become -- a relatively believable behind-the-scenes look at a live broadcast. Given its origin in Franken's topical humor, you'd think a "Nightline" parody would be a natural for him. But most of the sitcom's first season, which aired in the winter of '98, had been in the can for weeks by the time the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. Compared with the chaos that had overtaken Washington, "Lateline" seemed almost anti-political, even with the stunt castings of G. Gordon Liddy, Ralph Reed and Chastity Bono. "Lateline" already seemed more like a companion to other NBC office sitcoms, and would only become more so in each of its next two incarnations (episodes from the third go-round had just started airing Tuesday). Where both "Lateline" and "Sports Night" share some of the same stock characters -- the gruff boss, the pompous anchor(s), the office geek -- "Sports Night" is allowed to be its own self-contained "Broadcast News" dramedy each week, while "Lateline" was forced to play it all for laughs every minute and a half. Only when it accidentally "killed" Buddy Hackett did "Lateline" really live up to its source material. (That episode masterfully re-enacted the politics of "Nightline's" decision to honor the death of John Belushi, against Koppel's better judgment. That program will be best remembered for guest Milton Berle telling Koppel he had no idea why the hell he'd been booked on the show). Perhaps "Lateline" could have thrived better on ABC where it could have been more a cross between "Spin City" and "Sports Night," instead of an increasingly tinkered-with ensemble workplace comedy. -- Tom Heald

    What's happening to the independent stations?

    March 18--The biggest of the big broadcasters would like to get even bigger. NBC's president Bob Wright last week asked Vice President Gore to consider raising the limit on TV stations that a single entity may own from those covering 35 percent of the country to 50 percent of the country. Gore turned him down, but increasingly noises are being made by the broadcast lobby -- protector of tens of billions of dollars in free spectrum space and considered by many the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill -- to raise the ownership cap to 50 percent. Brian Lowry's reports in the Tuesday Los Angeles Times about the changing nature of L.A. television. Once known for its robust independent stations like KCOP and KTLA -- Jeff Kisseloff's book The Box devotes an entire chapter to KTLA's golden years -- now the TV scene there is becoming increasingly corporatized. And when even a sixth-place weblet like UPN can add millions of dollars in value to a station, being known as an "independent" has become a liability, not a strength. And now the industry faxsheet TV Business Confidential reports that Fox TV chairman/CEO Chase Carey has been making the rounds of Capitol Hill, urging the ownership cap be raised as well. Carey is willing to settle for 50 percent but what he'd really like is the abolition of all broadcast ownership regulations, freeing up Fox to own stations in every market. If lawmakers don't help him out, Carey said "it wasn't out of the question for the Fox broadcast network to become the Fox cable network," reports TVBizCon. Archive for the week of March 22, 1999

    High court pondering stops to "Cops"

    March 26--Now who are the "bad boys"? That's what the Supreme Court of the United States is considering. At issue is whether photographers who ride along with law enforcement patrols can constitutionally barge into homes with the police officers and record what goes on inside. It seems incredible, actually, that it took 11 years since the debut of "Cops" for a privacy case related to televised police busts to reach the high court. For 11 years crews from Barbour-Langley, the production company behind "Cops," have been riding around with participating local law enforcers. It's good PR for the cops, who are invariably shown as ordinary Joes who like their jobs, their partners and the people they serve. It's a reliable, inexpensive source of raw material to Barbour-Langley, which usually requires one week of shooting to compile enough good tape for one week's episode. In 1992, a Washington, D.C.-area couple were subject to a night visit from U.S. marshals -- and a reporter, and a photojournalist. The feds were actually looking for their son, suspected to be a violent fugitive. But the couple, wqho felt the presence of cameras represented a violation of their privacy rights, sued, and federal courts have ruled both ways on the case, leaving it up to the high court to decide. (The couple that sued are from a well-to-do suburb, which raises an interesting possibility: that most people interrogated by the police in the presence of TV cameras lack the means or perhaps the sophistication to consider a privacy suit.) More coverage of the issue:

    Can Kilborn (and producer) cut it?

    That's the question posed by The New York Observer in its profile this week of "Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn" executive producer Billy Kimball. Read the story ALSO: The Minneapolis Star-Tribune's columnist C.J. accompanied Kilborn back to his hometown. Read the story ALSO: See what happens when you enter your name in the search field at Kilborn's CBS website.

    Snyder signs off

    March 25--When Tom Snyder signed on in 1973 as the host of "The Tomorrow Show," who would've guessed that a nightly TV program with a 2 a.m. sign-off time would become an institution and have millions of us clamoring for a repeat performance? Twenty years later, one of Snyder's former "Tomorrow Show" producers, Roger Ailes, thought it would be a nifty idea to bring Tom back to TV. The result was "Tom Snyder," which ran for two years on CNBC and very quickly made Snyder big fish in that cable channel's small pond. It also inspired David Letterman to make Snyder his first choice for a new 12:35 show to follow "Late Show with David Letterman" on CBS. "The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder" got off to an inauspicious start in January 1995. For one thing, the show dragged; David Sanborn's first crack at a theme song sounded like it had been cut for slow dancing at a seniors' home. And the producers hadn't learned yet to do a cold open (i.e., Tom talking) out of a commercial break. The show's first guests -- an overly eager-to-please Candice Bergen and Newt Gingrich's crusty parents -- were intriguing but ultimately lacked payoff. But there was one element that night that shined, and continued to shine for the next four years: Snyder himself. His ability to ingratiate himself with guests, his infectious laugh (which supplied so much more atmosphere than a studio audience could have) and his Jack Paar-like affection for the cute (if not clever) story made "Late Late Show" an unusual and agreeable late-night den for conversation. It would be hard to run out of guest highlights from the 700-plus tapings of Snyder's show: Harlan Ellison, Rosemary Clooney, Robert Blake, every Dennis Miller appearance, Alec Baldwin, Oscars night, Conan O'Brien, James Woods, channeler J.Z. Knight, Bob Costas and Dave Letterman's prank phone calls, just to name some. Through it all, Snyder looked and sounded as indefatigable as ever. But that, it turns out, was something of an illusion. The five-nights-a-week grind apparently got to him -- that, and perhaps having to contend with a press that had turned unfriendly in light of his show's ratings deficit to "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." (The fact that O'Brien's show enjoyed a massive advantage over Snyder's in terms of 12:35 a.m. clearances and a compatible lead-in show were rarely mentioned.) So now Snyder is calling it a career, at least as far as nightly television is concerned. This week he's having his favorite guests back to the show: Thursday it will be a first-time guest at CBS, Tom Brokaw; Friday the final guest is Dennis Miller. And there will doubtless be some final reflections from your old friend T.S. Good night, Tom, drive safely, and come back soon. (Photo credit: CBS/Worldwide Pants)

    Other tributes to Tom

    The new, improved "Howard Stern"

    March 26--After five months on the air using a documentary style of storytelling, a revamped version of "The Howard Stern Radio Show on TV" debuted last Saturday. Scott Einziger, executive producer of Stern's daily cable show on E!, has done a fast-paced radical redesign to create a high-intensity TV version of Stern's nationally syndicated radio show. Blending new graphics, animation, short segments and tight editing, the effect is a show that defies you to fast forward on tape, let alone flip channels. The only similarity between this program and Stern's old Saturday night show at New York's WWOR-TV in 1990-91 (which Einziger also produced) is its multisegment format. The first segment alone included a guess-the-answer game with a girl in a bikini top; an interview with comedian Kathy Griffin; a wrestling match between two Stern staffers; a short animated cartoon; and an argument with comedian Pat Cooper. The longest feature on the show was a seven-minute demolition of Dennis Rodman's recent press conference by Stern and his partner Robin Quivers. The revised show also has more celebrity appearances, both in studio and on the street (featuring another Stern regular, "Stuttering" John Melendez). Stern's on-air style is a combination of aggression, voyeurism, confrontation for confrontation's sake and, of course, freak show. The latter was represented in a segment called "Gary The Retard," when a young man who was obviously developmentally disabled was shown going into an upscale strip club and given a lap dance. If this was too close a veer into exploitation for your taste it literally couldn't be avoided because it was intercut into the James Woods interview. Confronting people with what makes them uncomfortable for no purpose is an essential part of the Stern m.o. The "new" show, however well-executed, alternated between funny and tasteless. Nobody knows if this will raise the Stern show's ratings, or bring back stations that are dropping the show. If you are a Stern fan, you may like the new version of his show. Others may react like Lauren Bacall, who responded to a question from a Stern producer on the street about menstruation with this question: "What on earth are you talking about, you fool?" --Harrison Wyman

    "Two Guys" I.F. (or T.G. no more Olsen twins)

    March 24--The dismantling of ABC's durable "T.G.I.F." franchise appears to be underway. With neither of its two new Friday-night sitcoms lighting up the Nielsens this year, the network has announced it will replace the Olsen twins showcase "Two of a Kind" with repeats of its surprising success, "Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place," beginning April 9. TV Barn is waiting for the other shoe to drop -- namely the yanking of "Brother's Keeper," the other Friday freshman. Throughout the Nineties "T.G.I.F." has been a magnet for teen viewers. The loss of its two long-running sitcoms, "Family Matters" and "Step by Step," to CBS in 1997 didn't hurt ABC's fortunes; in fact, CBS was forced to cancel its two acquisitions after just one season of head-to-head competition with "T.G.I.F." But in truth, ABC hadn't fared much better, cancelling "Teen Angel" and "You Wish" last season. And teen tastes have clearly shifted away from comedy and toward the dramatic quasi-soaps offered on the WB. If the adult-oriented "Two Guys" proves a hit in repeats, look for "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" and possibly "Boy Meets World" to survive as standalone shows. With this move, "Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place" gets to stay on the air while the new Peter Mehlman show "It's like, you know..." takes over its time slot starting Wednesday. It will also be a good test of "Two Guys," which has been accused of being a classic "hammock" show, filling the gap between two more critically liked sitcoms "Dharma & Greg" and "Drew Carey" on ABC's highly-rated Wednesday night schedule. The network recently ordered 22 episodes of "Two Guys" for 1999-2000 and may be using this Friday-night trial to see if the show can go it alone without relying on one of its more famous siblings. Read the news about the "Two Guys" move

    What made "Pretender" a contender

    March 23--It wasn't one of the most eye-catching stories of the week. Most who read about it probably failed to grasp its importance. It was just another TV industry trade story about a cable show. But the more I thought about it, the more it told me about television and how the economic cycles of TV are very much like the creative cycles. Yes, there's always something new to report on, there are always new players on camera and behind the scenes. But the story is almost always the same. Last week, Twentieth Television, the syndication arm of Fox, announced it had sold off-network rights to the series "The Pretender" to TNT for about a quarter million dollars per episode. That doesn't include the non-pretend money Twentieth will make offering the show's 77 episodes to local stations on a barter basis (which means no cash is exchanged but Twentieth gets to sell some of the commercial time). When all's said and done, you'll be able to catch a rerun of the Michael T. Weiss drama about lost identity and poetic justice every weeknight on cable and twice a weekend on broadcast, beginning the fall of 2000. Twentieth, meanwhile, will reap at least an extra $40 million off its series. What makes this more remarkable is that "Pretender" airs on the least-watched night of the week and rarely breaks into Nielsen's top 50. The "Pretender" deal tells us a few stories that are familiar to network executives but perhaps less well-known to the general public. One is the way in which demographic ratings have come to completely dominate the conversation about what defines a successful TV show. Another is the emergence of Big Cable as its own subcategory and the desperation of Big Cable channels to fend off the 100-plus Little Cable channels that are stifling their growth. Many TV shows score a higher Nielsen ranking in young-adult viewers than in households or total viewers. This is especially true of the three newer networks: Fox, WB and (sometimes) UPN. "Ally McBeal," which finished 63rd last season in total viewers, was a huge hit with women 18-34 (10th overall) and was a top 20 show among adults 18-49. This year it's a huge hit no matter how you measure it. With WB shows the disparity is even greater, though "7th Heaven" (128th overall last season, but 20th among teens) now finishes third or better in its time period most weeks. The WB generally scores so well with teenage viewers that certain advertisers fall over each other trying to buy commercial time on the network's shows (movie studios, fast food restaurants). What's striking about "The Pretender" is that it airs, not on a weblet, but on a major broadcast network with a diverse schedule -- well, diverse by TV's standards. "Pretender" finished 61st overall in the Nielsens among total viewers. Ten shows with higher ratings were cancelled, including fellow Saturday-night series "Dr. Quinn" (56th). It did better among young adults, though not superlatively so. Still, "Pretender" was the highest-rated program on Saturday nights among viewers 18-54; "Walker, Texas Ranger," averaging three million more viewers than "Pretender," could do no better than third in that demographic (behind another NBC "Thrillogy" staple, "Profiler"). And that's what made this seemingly unexceptional property so valuable that it sparked a bidding war among three networks for the cable TV rights to its repeats. See, unlike broadcast networks, most cable networks don't even bother with that household-ratings crap. All they sell to advertisers is demographics. But unfortunately for some of cable's better-established players, they're no longer the only ones in the business anymore. And so, while the headlines have been shouting the triumph of cable channels over broadcast channels, the industry is buzzing about a lesser-known phenomenon: Big Cable is losing audience to Little Cable. USA is challenged by FX. Discovery must fend off HGTV. CNN erodes while Fox News Channel builds. Which brings us to TNT, one of the most widely-distributed and highest-rated cable channels around. TNT has never been afraid to pay big money for "event television" -- movies and sports, mainly -- but now it is being forced to compete for even second-tier programming. The reason is the emergence of Little Cable, a whole raft of newer, less-established networks most of which are competing for the same young-adult audience as the TNT's and USA's. And oftentimes there's a lot of money behind Little Cable. Which means that every time a program comes on the market with some obvious demographic appeal, it's bound to attract multiple, well-financed suitors. In recent months TNT has had to bid heavily for the cable rights to "ER" and the next cycle of "Law & Order" repeats. It's a scarcity thing. And now it's come to this: three heavily-financed cable channels, each backed by an industry mogul, in a $20 million auction for a network show that many viewers have never seen, has never been a huge hit and is an hourlong program (a negative, since half-hour sitcoms are better at grabbing viewers). Nonetheless, the Sci-Fi Channel (owned by Barry Diller's USA Networks), FX (owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.) and TNT all wanted it. In the end, the envelope with Ted Turner's bid was the fattest -- and so, despite the fact Twentieth and FX are both Murdoch properties, Twentieth cashed Turner's check and sent "Pretender" to TNT.
    Despite modest ratings, "The Pretender" sparked a bidding war among three well-funded cable channels for its off-network repeats. (Photo: NBC/Sven Arnstein) The sale of "Pretender" is also a cautionary tale for those too quick to write off the networks, particularly top-rated NBC. I was on hand in Pasadena in the summer of 1996 when NBC announced its Saturday-night "Thrillogy." At the time it was a minor matter compared with other press-tour news (as I recall, the "Friends" negotiations were in full panic). The one most of us heard about at the time was "Dark Skies," a not-very-good conspiracy show with a strong PR front. The show's creator, Bryce Zabel, relentlessly worked the event from mid-morning to late in the night at the NBC press party, and Shepley-Winings people were urging me to come visit the set. I remember standing outside at that party with one of the show's stars, the late J.T. Walsh, who was smoking a butt and avoiding his publicist, chatting with me about his salad days in the theater. "Dark Skies" was not a good show, but it was an interesting show. I couldn't say the same at first for "Pretender," which seemed to do the same thing week in and week out. Weiss's character Jarod would reinvent himself in some new occupation, smoke out some bad guy and fix his wagon in some fitting fashion. All the while there would be flashbacks to Jarod's black-and-white days as a young child prodigy shackled to a nefarious institution called The Centre. Not to make light of child exploitation, but I always wondered what this had to do with anything -- and why I should care. In time, however, I got my answer: Weiss made me care. I still can't say I understand the conspiracy that well, but Weiss has shown amazing talent as a man capable of re-enacting the emotions of a trapped little boy. The other actors on this show are peripheral, even the lovely is-she-or-isn't-she-wicked Miss Parker (played by Miss Andrea Parker). It's a tribute to Weiss that he continues to carry a show that clearly operates on a budget and within such formulaic constraints. At the time "Pretender," "Profiler" and "Dark Skies" launched, NBC was dead last among the four networks in audience and demographics on Saturday nights. One year later, NBC entertainment prez Warren Littlefield was beaming. "We've gone from worst to first in young adults!" he told the media. Not bad, considering "Dark Skies" had bombed (Zabel had better luck this year with "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven"). Saturday nights are not priority nights for most broadcast network executives. And yet NBC figured out a way to make money on it. Besides the ratings success of its "Thrillogy," the network owns 100 percent of "Profiler" and a chunk of "Pretender." So as those programs are offered in syndication -- "Profiler" is mirroring "Pretender," being offered to local stations first and then cable -- yet more money will flow into the General Electric coffers. You think that's a minor story? Try telling that to ABC, which has not grown a hit in five years on Saturday nights, or for that matter Thursday nights. Try telling it to the producers of "Cupid" or "Nothing Sacred" or "Cracker," shows that were put on ABC's Saturday schedule, just to watch them die. As more and more channels are added to your local cable grid, how television handles smaller programs will increasingly become a big issue. I was watching the "Politically Incorrect After Party" on ABC Sunday night as the host, Bill Maher, made a comment after the show's opening sketch had bombed. "I feel like I'm back on basic cable," he joked. But he's not on basic cable anymore. A small show like "PI" is too important to a network's bottom line to be kept on cable. How many stories about "The Sopranos" have you read lately? I've seen at least five or six -- and trust me, the HBO series deserves even more press than it's getting. Will there be more competition someday for shows like "The Sopranos," which after all is being developed by one of TV's biggest studios, Brillstein/Grey? You'd better believe it. Small isn't small any more. The economics of the TV biz are making giants out of average-sized shows. It's making Saturday night shows all right for fighting. It's making contenders out of "Pretenders."

    Rock on

    March 22--The 14th annual "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" induction ceremony was held in New York City Monday night and originally broadcast Wednesday night (it will repeat often). VH1's special featured Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, The Staple Singers, Billy Joel and the late Dusty Springfield and Del Shannon among the inductees. There were moving moments and joyful ones too. If you ever get into a hall of fame, have Ray Charles give your induction speech, as he did for Billy Joel. The center of the show was not the ceremony but the all-star jam session that followed. "Late Show with David Letterman" bandleader Paul Shaffer was the musical director, although with so much talent on stage he was more of a air traffic controller than conductor. The music was a little ragged but made up in emotional punch what it lacked in polish. The high point was a rendition of Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready" with an improvised opening lyric by Bono. When Paul McCartney stood at the microphone to sing "Let it Be," you could feel the passage of time, the ache of loss and the hope and renewal that music brings. -- Harrison Wyman

    Bravissimo!

    March 22--They really should've cut it by 40 minutes or so, but Sunday night's four-hour-plus Academy Awards telecast otherwise sparkled and shined and for once, delivered on the pre-show hype of uncertainty in the major categories. In the end, Roberto Benigni and Steven Spielberg were rewarded for their visions, Judi Dench and James Coburn were recognized for films they'd made in the past, and Harvey Weinstein's $6 million promotional push for "Shakespeare in Love" paid some very handsome dividends. Clearly the high point of the telecast was Benigni's Oscar for best foreign film. It's not often that the best actor award is considered an anticlimax; Benigni not only used up all of his English in the joyous aftermath of his first Oscar win, he used up most of the crowd's enthusiasm. (That less than exuberant look on the face of his wife and co-star, one assumes, has something to do with a language barrier. That, and she probably sees Benigni behave like this ten times a day.) So many other moments nearly justified the telecast's unforgivable (and record) length: Whoopi Goldberg's ongoing parade of can-you-top-this fashions. Ed Harris and Nick Nolte sitting on their hands for Elia Kazan. Genuinely touching tributes from two winners, best actress Gwyneth Paltrow and best short-documentary filmmaker Keiko Ibi. Chris Rock and Robin Williams. And Jim Carrey. And I never thought anything sung by Celine Dion would move me, but I was wrong. Still, perhaps you're more cynical than I am, in which case you'll definitely want to read Paul Harris' instant take on the Oscars at http://www.harrisonline.com (it begins: "Does anyone in the world think Whoopi Goldberg is as funny as she obviously does?"). Read the AP's account and visit the Mercury News' complete Oscars site. A link to my Sunday A-1 article on who's writing the Oscars.

    Why "Lateline" lost and "SportsNight" succeeded

    March 18--Fan as I am of Al Franken's work, I should be saddened by the announcement that his "Lateline" is now "really most sincerely dead." And I might actually be sad were it not for the other announcement of the week -- ABC's "SportsNight" has been renewed. For "SportsNight" manages to be everything "Lateline" never could quite become -- a relatively believable behind-the-scenes look at a live broadcast. Given its origin in Franken's topical humor, you'd think a "Nightline" parody would be a natural for him. But most of the sitcom's first season, which aired in the winter of '98, had been in the can for weeks by the time the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. Compared with the chaos that had overtaken Washington, "Lateline" seemed almost anti-political, even with the stunt castings of G. Gordon Liddy, Ralph Reed and Chastity Bono. "Lateline" already seemed more like a companion to other NBC office sitcoms, and would only become more so in each of its next two incarnations (episodes from the third go-round had just started airing Tuesday). Where both "Lateline" and "Sports Night" share some of the same stock characters -- the gruff boss, the pompous anchor(s), the office geek -- "Sports Night" is allowed to be its own self-contained "Broadcast News" dramedy each week, while "Lateline" was forced to play it all for laughs every minute and a half. Only when it accidentally "killed" Buddy Hackett did "Lateline" really live up to its source material. (That episode masterfully re-enacted the politics of "Nightline's" decision to honor the death of John Belushi, against Koppel's better judgment. That program will be best remembered for guest Milton Berle telling Koppel he had no idea why the hell he'd been booked on the show). Perhaps "Lateline" could have thrived better on ABC where it could have been more a cross between "Spin City" and "Sports Night," instead of an increasingly tinkered-with ensemble workplace comedy. -- Tom Heald

    What's happening to the independent stations?

    March 18--The biggest of the big broadcasters would like to get even bigger. NBC's president Bob Wright last week asked Vice President Gore to consider raising the limit on TV stations that a single entity may own from those covering 35 percent of the country to 50 percent of the country. Gore turned him down, but increasingly noises are being made by the broadcast lobby -- protector of tens of billions of dollars in free spectrum space and considered by many the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill -- to raise the ownership cap to 50 percent. Brian Lowry's reports in the Tuesday Los Angeles Times about the changing nature of L.A. television. Once known for its robust independent stations like KCOP and KTLA -- Jeff Kisseloff's book The Box devotes an entire chapter to KTLA's golden years -- now the TV scene there is becoming increasingly corporatized. And when even a sixth-place weblet like UPN can add millions of dollars in value to a station, being known as an "independent" has become a liability, not a strength. And now the industry faxsheet TV Business Confidential reports that Fox TV chairman/CEO Chase Carey has been making the rounds of Capitol Hill, urging the ownership cap be raised as well. Carey is willing to settle for 50 percent but what he'd really like is the abolition of all broadcast ownership regulations, freeing up Fox to own stations in every market. If lawmakers don't help him out, Carey said "it wasn't out of the question for the Fox broadcast network to become the Fox cable network," reports TVBizCon. Articles for the week of April 5, 1999

    "MST3K" on the brink

    If the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" folks wanted to go out with a bang, they failed. But if they wanted to begin the end of a decade spent poking fun at bad films with the same, finely-honed insouciance that made them a cult favorite in the first place, then they've done themselves proud. In the season premiere airing 11 p.m. Sunday, the crew at Best Brains Inc. in Minneapolis demonstrates why their show has stayed fresher after nine seasons than "The X-Files" and its two little meat puppets have after just five. As Barry Diller's Sci-Fi Channel relaunches itself as a mainstream-friendly SF outpost, it has chosen to drop baggage such as "MST3K," very much as Comedy Central punted the show in 1996 during its 2.0 upgrade. In one sense this is understandable, because "MST3K" has never been a phenomenon. It never swept the cultural consciousness the way "Star Trek" did. Crow and Tom Servo were no Mulder and Scully. Nor did Sci-Fi ever get the kind of PR mileage from "MST3K" that it is currently enjoying from the Francis Ford Coppola-produced "First Wave," just as Comedy Central waited in vain for the show to create the brand identity "South Park" eventually would. But "MST3K" has been, as the New York Observer's Ron Rosenbaum once wrote, "perhaps the funniest ongoing critique of American culture ever." I would further note that it is an unofficial critique of the Sci-Fi Channel's programming for "MST3K" to let the viewing public know, as it has these past three years, that the programming emperors have no clothes. The heartwarming story of a stranded temp worker and his robots who while away the hours talking back to bad genre films, "MST3K" will air its tenth season of 13 episodes and will then end, barring a paradoxical plea from the show's producers to their fan base to help save the show (the Sci-Fi Channel claims that Best Brains practically welcomed the issuing of the pink slip). The show has endured an obstacle course since its founding. It went from Twin Cities indie station KTMA-TV to Comedy Channel (later Comedy Central) to Sci-Fi Channel. The producers even tried, briefly, to repackage the show in one-hour episodes for syndication, a futile effort that will be remembered for host Mike Nelson's game imitation of A&E personality Jack Perkins. At the height of its fame, such as it was, Best Brains even released a movie version of "MST3K." That tanked at the box office -- and then Comedy Central cancelled the show. "MST3K" suffered the loss of important players over the years, including Joel Hodgson, its creator, whose on-camera name was Joel Robinson. (He preceded current host Mike Nelson as the designated human "meat puppet" at the show's home base, the Satellite of Love.) Other expatriates include Josh Weinstein (probably unknown to all but the most diehard "MST'ies," Weinstein was the high-pitched Dr. Erhardt in the first season), Frank Conniff (as TV's Frank) and Trace Beaulieu (who played both the evil Dr. Forrester and the onetime voice of Crow). Much like the stars of "M*A*S*H," Hollywood anonymity was the destination of most of the departed. As is their habit, the "MST3K" folks are eschewing the usual irritating promo gimmicks for the final season launch. That is, unless you count the new opening credits and the ever-so-brief return of TV's Frank and Joel Robinson (Hodgson looks somewhat beefier than his earlier version). In this outing, Mike Nelson and the 'bots skewer "SoulTaker," a film Mrs. Forrester correctly calls "skin-peelingly bad." The "SoulTaker" roasting is vintage "MST3K." This is a show that over 90 minutes manages more laugh-out-loud lines than three typical sitcoms. After Joe Estevez takes the soul of a hospital patient, the non sequiturs begin to fly. Crow: "You know, it's just not death with dignity if there's an Estevez in the room." Tom Servo: "You think he's hourly? Or does he get paid on a per-soul basis?" Crow: "See, if he put The Club on his soul, this would not have happened." And so on. The Sci-Fi Channel is a prime example of the growth of the once-insular SF genre and its saturation of the culture. The high profile that Sci-Fi is giving its new Friday night prime-time block is a good indicator of where the channel thinks its viewer growth will come from. It won't come from the dedicated remnant of "MST3K" fans. So "MST3K" is being dumped for flashier, more accessible shows like "Farscape" and "First Wave." But it would be wrong to conclude from this that "MST3K" was inaccessible to the non-SF audience. Appreciating "MST3K" does not require an aficionado's knowledge of science fiction, despite the references over the years to "Starlog" and Harlan Ellison. It does have its rewards for a viewer with an unpretentious love of movies. And sure, someone who knows the location of UW-Stout or the village of Ashwaubenon will find even more to appreciate. Is that so wrong? Some films inspire sympathetic wincing by the audience because the producers so obviously tried to make a decent film. But this show's stock in trade is the film whose producers just didn't care, the minor investment someone hoped to cash in on. "MST3K" makes no attempt to pretend to be art or education (never mind the Ayn Rand or Aeschylus references over the years), but it does hold Hollywood up to the best critical eye available: that of three guys who love movies but don't fall for industry BS. Which may be the most problematic aspect of this show for Sci-Fi Channel. Let's face it, that heads-and-chairbacks silhouette familiar to "MST3K" fans could have run along the bottom of most of the channel's programming in recent years. Now as Diller tries to reinvent Sci-Fi as a Channel That Matters, we can welcome the resultant drop in dreck, but mourn the loss of the anti-dreck truth squad from Minneapolis. --John Zipperer Visit the official "MST3K" website (watch the new opening in RealVideo)

    Stern takes on the spoilsports

    Over the past several months you've been seeing full-page ads in major daily newspapers urging the major TV networks to clean up the "filth" in their early prime time schedules. Those ads, featuring former "Tonight Show" host Steve Allen, are paid for by the Parents Television Council, an L.A.-based nonprofit that urges boycotts of sponsors whose ads appear on programs the PTC thinks are inappropriate for prime time -- or in the case of Howard Stern's TV show, should not air anytime, anywhere. One of the ways the PTC tries to get the word out about indecent TV is through its celebrity board. "Twenty-four prominent celebrities and behind-the-scenes players have joined the Parents Television Council's effort to bring quality programming to television," says its website. One of those "players" is Jack Valenti, the longtime lobbyist for the motion-picture industry. Valenti's inclusion on this board is curious, since he has been the point man in getting the government to accept a toothless set of voluntary TV ratings (TV-PG and the like) and has let NBC off the hook for refusing to adopt a second set of ratings based on content (such as S for sex and D for adult descriptions). One would think the PTC would be unhappy with Valenti for always taking the broadcasters' side in content matters, but the idea of having him on its board seems to have been too good to pass up. But there are a couple of curious choices among the board's celebrity members as well, namely Marty Ingels and his wife, actress Shirley Jones. Ingels, who brokers "big-name endorsement TV ads for the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Joan Collins, Joe Montana, and many others," and Jones have each made appearances on Howard Stern's radio show -- which the Parents Television Council is trying to rub out. Say what? That's what Howard said, too. So last Friday he called up Jones and Ingels and asked them the obvious question: Have you changed your minds? Have you lost your minds? Do you really want me off the air? The one-hour discussion that ensued was, according to listener Bob Mann, "great radio" and a "great debate on censorship." Howard's number one chronicler on the Net, marksfriggin.com, described it this way: "Marty rambled on for a solid 45 minutes about the same things while Howard tried to get one simple answer out of him: 'Do you think that I should be taken off the air?' All Marty could come up with for an answer was 'I'm not sure.' And that's a direct quote. Howard can't believe that someone would sit on the board of something they don't even believe in." As for his wife, Jones said "she loved 'Private Parts' the movie and that Howard is a good actor. She won't let her children listen to the radio show, though." (To which reader Dave Hoffman replies, "Don't ya think Shaun Cassidy sneaks a listen to Howard's show on headphones up in his room before school?")

    Kilborn under glass


    Photo: CBS/Worldwide Pants So the reviews weren't exactly chipper for the "Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn." No surprise there. Kilborn offered plenty of fresh meat for unkind TV critics. His new act looked suspiciously like his old act on "The Daily Show": Fake news. Five Questions. A Moment for Us. Not to mention Kilby's smug, self-absorbed TV personality, which produced the usual visceral responses from critics. (The one scribe from whom a hostile review is practically assured, the New York Post's Michele Greppi, laid low the first week; Adam Buckman did the Post's review instead and gave "Late Late Show" three stars.) As for me, having seen two of the broadcasts, I'm in no hurry to see any more for a while. What struck me was the recurrence of a trend I'd noted in the early seasons of the Leno-Letterman battle: the tendency of one show to imitate the competition. (Read this issue of LATE SHOW NEWS from 1994 for examples of Jay ripping off Dave; see any "Late Show" monologue from 1995-96, during the O.J. trials, for examples of Dave ripping off Jay.) In its new version, we see Kilborn showing a bogus clip of something on "last night's show" -- a standard Conan bit -- and giving a group of people in the audience a humorous identity, which "Saturday Night Live" did in the '70s and Arsenio Hall did every night in the early '90s (at almost precisely the same point in the program as Kilborn does his). And not even a bizarre indoor tan altered Janeane Garofalo sufficiently to prevent her guest segment Friday from resembling every other Janeane Garofalo panel of the past half life. But lest anyone fall under the impression that CBS is unhappy with Kilborn's derivative late-night act, the ratings please: "Late Late Show" held steady its first week in the 1.6 to 1.7 Nielsen range (a Nielsen point equaling about a million TV homes). While not great, those numbers are certainly comparable with Snyder's, and according to CBS Kilborn's viewership is younger than Snyder's. Also, if we're going to compare debut numbers, recall that Conan O'Brien's ratings in 1993 started out in the 1.5 range -- and his benefitted from NBC's excellent record in getting affiliates to run its late-night schedule "in pattern" (i.e., at the scheduled times), something Kilby won't have at CBS. When I first started writing LATE SHOW NEWS, I liked to say that late-night television is different because shows on at that hour are not competing with the remote control so much as they're competing with sleep. Now I'm not so sure of that anymore. Not after watching the viewership for NBC's "Later" build steadily over five years, all qualitative factors to the contrary. Bob Costas put on as good a show at 1:35 a.m. as anyone could hope for, but when he left "Later" it was averaging a 1.0 Nielsen rating. Today that's up in the 1.5-1.6 range despite an unimpressive rotation of guest hosts. NBC sources have told me the network has a hard time convincing advertisers to buy spots on "Later" because a commercial at 2 a.m. is not considered a worthwhile buy under any conditions. But I can't believe that will remain the case as the late-late audience keeps growing. CBS's strategy with Kilborn, then, may not be so much to rule the world at 12:35 a.m. as to ensure it gets its piece of the ever-expanding late-night pie. And besides, CBS is realistic: It knows Kilborn is not Conan O'Brien. While he has certainly authored his own on-air persona, he gives no indication that he wants to invent a new school of fringe comedy like O'Brien did. Nor does he have a chance of conquering O'Brien in the ratings, and even if he did, he doesn't seem poised to go in for the kill the way Letterman was with Leno (who then returned the favor). On the other hand, Kilborn doesn't have as difficult an act to follow as O'Brien did in replacing Letterman. Really, Kilborn has just two tasks before him: Flex his demographic appeal and look like he knows what he's doing. After one week, it's pretty clear he passes both tests. Finally, a word about correlating critical response to show success -- as though I need to make this rather obvious point. Since Bill Maher brought his Comedy Central shtick over to network TV, the comments I've received or heard from viewers have run at least 90 percent anti. People, then, are routinely amazed to hear that "Politically Incorrect" is holding its own in the ratings; I often hear comments to the effect of, "Who would want to watch that show?" Well, apparently 2 or 3 million souls each night do, a good number of them younger viewers. Even assuming that the average fan only catches "PI" twice a week, that still means the show appeals to less than 10 percent of the entire viewing public. Which means that nearly everybody you know could despise the show and it could still be a hit. Something to keep in mind while you watch those Craig Kilborn promos as they fly through the air.

    Reader mail

    Not really apropos of anything, but I must admit I like reader Michael W. Jones's suggestion: "I think a possible solution to the Kosovo problem would be for the American rock elite to somehow stage a benefit concert in the wartorn area. It would show great courage on America's part, especially in not wearily answering force with force (unless of course Metallica plays) but attacking the entrenched Serbian anomosity from a higher vibrational plane. What money is raised and from whom is of secondary concern. I think this was John Lennon's vision of handling international disputes, and has yet to be taken seriously." Read this week's mail

    "That 70's Dud"

    Sue Karlin had an article in Monday's L.A. Times on the new pop-culture exchange between the U.S. and Britain. Exhibit A in her story was the fact that America's Carsey-Werner company had spun off a British version of its series for Fox, "That 70's Show." Very interesting. Only one problem: Britain's ITV pulled the show off the air after just six episodes because of lousy ratings! (See this story.) I know Sue Karlin, who used to be on the masthead at Entertainment Weekly, and this isn't her fault; the Times obviously held the story too long. Besides, her story has other interesting info about the transatlantic cultural exchange, so I recommend reading it -- just don't take the first part too seriously.

    Funny is as funny does


    Guess who's coming back to prime-time TV? Should I shoot myself now? It's pilot development season again, and you know what that means: way more sitcoms are on the drawing board than have any right to be. And Hollywood knows it. With pressure increasing to keep audiences from fleeing to cable, network executives are said to be taking a hard look at cable's low-rent, reality-based approach to TV comedy. But as I argue in an essay that appeared in Sunday's Kansas City Star, what the networks really ought to be doing is taking a hard look at the great sitcoms of old and learning what made them work (here's a hint: the writing). Read the essay

    "Passions": Like Univision, only in English

    NBC's latest in-house-produced soap opera appears to be aimed at a Latino audience, as this casting sheet from Backstage Pass makes plain.

    Articles for week of April 11, 1999

    Bill Wendell dies

    One of the great all-time broadcast announcers, Bill Wendell, who for 15 years was the voice of David Letterman's morning and late-night talk shows and was regarded as second only to the legendary Don Pardo among NBC-TV announcers, died of complications of cancer in Florida. He was 75. When he retired from "Late Show" at the end of its second season on CBS in 1995, this is what I wrote: "I first heard Bill Wendell in 1975, doing the voiceover for Spud Beer, one of those fake ads from the first season of 'Saturday Night Live.' On the occasion of his retirement following Friday's broadcast of the 'Late Show,' they're remembering Wendell mostly for his zany antics as crowd warmer-upper on Letterman's NBC show and as Ernie Kovacs's TV sidekick in the 1950s. But back on 'SNL' and especially the old 'Late Night,' Wendell could also take a script and make it sparkle. His voiceovers at the top of each broadcast had a delightful self-mocking buffoonery, and when his voice trailed off while bellowing David Llllletterman's name, he had a peculiar way of making it sound like his last breath on earth. The millions who have only heard his lifeless intros on CBS -- invariably redone after the taping from an announcer's booth, far from the madding crowds -- don't know what fun they missed. "Wendell is a throwback, not only to the old days of announcing, but the old days of televised comedy, when the warmup guy was king. Norman Lear, even in his heyday, with more smash sitcoms than CBS had room for, still did his own warmups for 'All in the Family' and had the ladies rolling in the aisles. Before Bob Barker became the eminence grise of grubby merchandising, he had a harmless little show called 'Truth or Consequences' that opened with a shot of the studio audience roaring with laughter at the warmup act. Wendell considered audience prep his specialty, and whether or not he was any good at it by the 1980s, it worked for Dave. At one point during 'Late Night's' run, the introductory sequence always included a sweep shot of the audience with Wendell prominently shown firing up the crowd. Bill would do anything for a laugh -- including one of those hilariously grim pieces they used to do at NBC, where Letterman offs Wendell after a joyride in the country. "He was taken off the warmup beat in the last season at NBC, replaced by Bill Scheft, who continued at CBS until some other guy filled in and was replaced by the current audience prepper, a standup comedian named Wali Collins ... [who] is said to be outrageous and effective at whipping the crowd into a lather -- what Wendell was known for in the 1950s." Many observers have noted the similarities between Letterman's early TV comedy and that of Kovacs. For that we probably also have Wendell to thank. Letterman told interviewer Charlie Rose in 1996 that in preparing to do his late-night show on NBC, he and his staff looked at old kinescopes of Steve Allen's Westinghouse show, adding, "Because our announcer in those days, Bill Wendell, had been the announcer on the Ernie Kovacs show ... we looked at some of those as well." In addition to his announcing duties, Wendell took over for Jack Barry as host of "Tic Tac Dough" in 1958. Prior to joining NBC, Wendell was an announcer at the DuMont network. After leaving "Late Show," he could be heard announcing ads for Old Navy retail stores. If you're registered at the New York Times website, you can read the NYT obituary here.

    The finest network money can buy

    One of the most successful ideas in cable TV this decade wasn't a spinoff, didn't have a nine-figure marketing campaign behind it, hasn't made a dime in profit and never will. It's Classic Arts Showcase, a 24-hour network of high-quality fine arts programming presented in video-jukebox format. It's the brainchild of philanthropist Lloyd E. Rigler, who leased a transponder in 1994 and began uplinking three- to five-minute clips of opera, symphony, classic cinema and ballet in the hope that young people would get hooked and then -- following the hourly on-screen admonitions -- switch off their TVs and go take on the arts. Rigler, who turns 84 next month on his network's fifth anniversary, is an evangelist for high culture. He cares about only one thing: reach. By that measure Classic Arts Showcase has been a phenomenal hit. It's carried in more than 53 million U.S. homes, at least some of the time, through local educational or public access channels. It passed the 50-million milestone last year in less time than it took HGTV and nearly as fast as The History Channel. Every week, Classic Arts Showcase airs a fresh eight-hour video loop compiled by Lloyd's nephew Jamie Rigler and his staff from a library that numbers 4,000 clips and growing. To produce those clips, and pay for the 12-year satellite lease, the network runs a deficit of $6 to $8 million a year, all of it paid for by the foundation set up by Rigler and his late business partner. While that's a pile of money to lose, it's unlikely Classic Arts Showcase would've gone far had it tried the for-profit route, as the old CBS Cable tried and Ovation is now trying to do. The network's educational status allowed Rigler to obtain the needed permissions to show the videos at no cost. And it opened up a completely untapped market to Classic Arts: the hundreds of cable access channels across the country running billboards or the duller-than-dull NASA channel as their backbone. The network is now carried on 270 cable systems, some airing as little as two hours of its programming per week. Although the foundation at times mails out promotional postcards to cable systems, in many cases operators simply put Classic Arts on their access channels unsolicited. "The thing I'm most proud of is that it's truly been through word of mouth," says the younger Rigler. In terms of cultivating its audience and getting distribution, Classic Arts Showcase has been as opportunistic as any commercial cable network. And that's probably why Classic Arts is the only other viable privately-funded noncommercial cable network since the founding of C-SPAN. Which, when you think about it, is pretty pathetic. Despite all the talk of diversity increasing with the expansion of the cable spectrum, there is a tremendous amount of redundancy on cable today, not only in terms of genres (news, sports, documentary) but programs (biography, nature, celebrity news, home fixup). Classic Arts Showcase's success only underscores the larger failure of cable, and American TV in general, to create safe haven for any niche concept that can't guarantee a profit. At the time C-SPAN came along in 1979, it was one of but 14 services in basic cable. Now there are 200, counting regional networks; by the 1979 scale at least a dozen of them ought to be noncommercial. Instead we've got four: three C-SPANs and Classic Arts. Doesn't seem like a big deal to you? That's not surprising. American television has been dominated by commercial tastes for so long that most of us have a hard time even conceptualizing what kind of programming we'd get if Nielsens weren't the sole measure of success in TV. (For that reason you can't count PBS, which is as audience-driven as any commercial network.) Yet there are scores of niche audiences being bypassed today, either because advertisers don't want them or they're just too small to bother with. People older than 54. Progressives. Alternative healthcare givers. Fans of small theater and world music. Night owls still awaiting the female version of David Susskind. Teenagers sick of TV that conforms relentlessly to the MTV template. And it's not just entertainment. At a time when local stations are chopping out their minority-affairs programs and just about anything else that doesn't have the word "news" in the title, there's an appalling dearth of public-minded TV programming (unless you count the ones where six panelists spend the hour yelling at each other). Lloyd Rigler was able to figure out how to get his message on the air, because he found a solution for the two problems that bedevil every independent-minded programmer: funding and bandwidth. Unfortunately, there are only so many access channels out there, and Classic Arts is already on the best ones. Which means it's back to the drawing board for anyone else with a really good niche idea. Learn more about Classic Arts Showcase from its website

    Xena-phobes

    According to a report in Variety last week, Renaissance Pictures has agreed to remove from worldwide distribution an episode of the syndicated "Xena: Warrior Princess" that elicited weeks of protest from some Hindus. "The Way" involved Hindu deities Lord Krishna and Hanuman helping Xena escape a demon and reunite with Gabrielle, her devoted sidekick. In light of the incident, Renaissance reportedly hired a Hindu consultant to see if the episode can be re-released in a modified format. The World Vaishnava Association and the American Hindus Against Defamation complained that the episode treated the deities as fictional characters by putting words into their mouths; and if the gods are fictional, then Hindus look "foolish," according to the complaint, because they worship false gods. In a letter to viewers posted on the "Xena" and "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" Web sites (both shows are Renaissance products), executive producer Rob Tapert apologized to Hindus who were offended. However, he pointedly rejected further criticism in the same complaints that Lord Krishna is defamed because of Krishna's assistance to Xena in finding Gabrielle, "who is obviously her lesbian lover." Tapert wrote, "Every critic has a personal agenda. Many agendas are worthy of consideration. However, those born out of bigotry and intolerance must be fought. To those Hindus we offended, our apology stands. To those with an agenda of intolerance, this is not a victory." Really? So sexual content is off-limits, but religious activists are free to step in and control the portrayal of their faith? Why not admit the real reason for the changes -- Renaissance's shows are seen by millions in Central Asia and the company is trying to avoid a backlash that could cost it valuable ratings points there. After all, one doubts consultants are advising the producers on how to portray Hercules and Xena without offending Greek pagan viewers. --John Zipperer

    Joan Cusack project

    We don't know much about the new Joan Cusack pilot being developed by Carsey-Werner ("Roseanne," "3rd Rock," "That 70's Show") -- but here's what we do know.

    Not "ha-ha" funny

    Looks like it's a trend: A week after my essay on the sorry state of the sitcom, along comes Entertainment Weekly decrying the same thing: "A handful of shows are as good as television has ever been," writes Steve Lopez, "but with more networks and more total airtime than ever, the pool of writing and production talent has been drained. And nowhere are the waters shallower -- or the bottom feeders more plentiful -- than in the programming genre that has most shaped American popular culture over the last half century." Probably just a coincidence ... as was the fact we both felt the need to speak with Peter Mehlman of "It's like, you know ..." (see it 8:30 tonight on ABC) about this crisis in comedy. (Mehlman helpfully supplied EW and me with some identical quotes.) But as reader Paul Murray points out, "Their analysis is somewhat different from yours -- instead of going back to past shows to see what worked, they quote some people (including Larry Gelbart) who say the problem is that today's writers know only TV." Actually, that's part of my critique, too. As for EW's rankings of the top sitcoms on TV today -- with the highest echelon reserved for just three shows, "Friends," "Everybody Loves Raymond" and reruns of "Seinfeld" -- hard to argue with those. Read my essay (sorry, the EW is online for subscribers only)

    Up with Urkel

    Jaleel White is back and every indication is his new UPN sitcom will be just as lame as his old one! But what do I know -- all I've seen of his pilot is this casting sheet from our friends at Backstage Pass.

    "The Race to Save 100 Years"

    There is a decidedly disposable feel to a lot of modern entertainment. A program you miss that's "Must See TV" you can always see in a rerun (when it's "new to you"). Miss a movie, and you can either catch a later showing or it'll be on video in six months. Yet surprisingly, "disposable" would also be an accurate description of how even some of the most venerable works of cinema have been treated. Poor storage conditions in neglected vaults, the widespread use of flammable nitrate film stock, and even McCarthy-era censorship have all worn away at the quality of movie libraries everywhere. "The Race to Save 100 Years," airing on Turner Classic Movies tonight (TCM's fifth anniversary), makes its television debut as an intermission of sorts in TCM's 24-hour "Restoration Marathon" of restored films and serves as not only an overview of the history of film preservation, but a testimonial to the efforts of film preservationists. An earnest plea for continued funding of film preservation, the 1997 documentary features the only surviving footage from Greta Garbo's 1928 silent "The Divine Woman," rare fragments from the original "King Kong" and "A Streetcar Named Desire" (which managed to be preserved despite the fact they did not conform to the Hayes censorship code), and several other sequences once thought to be lost forever. While the brief interviews with Martin Scorsese and a bevy of film archivists remind us in solemn tones of the importance of each bit of footage, one can't help but wish that more of the films had been allowed to speak for themselves. -- Tom Heald The complete "Restoration Marathon" schedule

    Reader mail

    After following a link from the TV Barn site, Michael Jones writes, "I read with amusement Howard Rosenberg's article on how it took a war to get Monica off the front page. Yet remarkably, CNN has still dispatched a reporter and a camera crew to follow Monica on her British book tour. I think from CNN's perspective, the ideal situation would be if Monica could somehow visit Yugoslavia during her tour -- which would enable them to cover not only the war but Monica as well. Of course, if Monica somehow developed a close relationship with Slobodan during the visit ... now that would icing in the cake and perhaps even help out our war effort. She could put her considerable talents to use in distracting the Serbs like she did the American people the past year, and maybe they might even forget their original objective in Kosovo. Just think -- we might not have to send in ground troops after all." Matt Ackeret was amazed to hear that much of my reader mail on "Politically Incorrect" is negative. He writes, "Have these people actually ever watched the show? I thought the idea was stupid when I first heard about it ('a comedic McLaughlin Group'). But 'PI' is among my favorite TV shows overall (not just late night shows). I probably even laugh out loud at 'PI' even more than I do for something on Letterman's show. During almost every show, someone says something really funny. You have to be semi-conscious of the world around you to get some of Bill Maher's monologue jokes (though he often dumbs them down), but after that he really explains in detail when they talk about something that's been in the news." Brian See, who went to school with actress Sara Gilbert ("Roseanne"), noted with interest the casting sheet for her new sitcom pilot for CBS, "The Next Big Thing," which I posted at the TV Barn website. The sheet calls for a cast member who is "very pretty, very trendy, free spirited and a touch off-center. She attended Harvard with Sara but dropped out to come to Los Angeles ... " Brian writes, "Of course, in Real Life, Sara Gilbert went to and graduated from Yale University. I should know -- we graduated the same year and were in the same residential college (i.e., dorm). Sara kept away from publicity, and for the most part people respected her wishes. Still, we were proud that she was associated with Yale. I remember a crowded TV room bursting into cheers during her 'Saturday Night Live' appearance, when an 'SNL' castmember appeared wearing a Yale hat. I'm sure a lot of people will be disappointed to hear that Sara will be playing a cantab on TV." Maybe so, but Yale is no Ball State, bub ... And a reader named Joni takes issue with a couple of things I wrote about the debut of "Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn." She writes, "I've read quite a few reviews of Kilborn's show and while not glowing, they've generally been kind. After all, he's only been on a week, these shows take a while to find out what works and what doesn't. As for Craig's so-called 'act' being suspiciously like his old one on 'The Daily Show' ... could it be that's why CBS wanted him? Do you really think he was going to change his whole image? If it was fine for Dave to take his top ten lists and his stupid pet tricks, why isn't it alright if Craig takes his trademark routines?"

    "Suddenly" Strickland tribute

    You may have heard that production on the Brooke Shields sitcom, "Suddenly Susan" (the future of which looks about as grim as the Shields-Andre Agassi union) had shut down following the news that cast member David Strickland, in trouble with drugs and the law, had killed himself. Now it appears the show is going back into taping for one last episode: a tribute to Strickland's character Todd. Read the casting sheet from Backstage Pass.

    Must-bleed TV

    It's amazing how the pendulum of public opinion veers your way when you own every broadcast outlet still on the air. That's what ethnic cleanser Slobodan Milosevic is accomplishing ever since he shut down independent media and began using state-run TV to whip up war fever among young Serbians. Last October Serbian TV began airing a hot new music video that encourages viewers to take up arms to defend their beloved country. The video airs 20 or more times a day. Combined with strategic showings of films designed to reacquaint viewers with the centuries-old conflicts that have involved their ancestors, the full televised assault is having its intended effect, according to this report from The New Republic's correspondent in Belgrade.

    >>> Aaron Barnhart's TVBARN.COM


    Articles for week of April 19, 1999

    A fan with a mission

    I'm a little late to discover the newest contribution to the genre of late-night TV books, but maybe I can make up for it by moving a few more copies of Dan Wagner's self-published Getting to Howard: The Odyssey of an Obsessed Howard Stern Fan, issued last September. It is the surprisingly absorbing account of a freelance photographer based in New York City who one day faxes in a joke to Stern's radio show and gets a huge adrenaline rush when it's read on the air. So intoxicating is the thrill, in fact, that Wagner immediately sets to crafting more faxes of ever-increasing complexity. Many of these also get read on the air. Eat, sleep, breathe: Wagner starts hanging out online in Stern chat rooms. He stalks some of the quasi-celebrities he's seen on Stern's late-night TV show on E! He endures an eight-hour ordeal at a Stern book signing. He's hired as an extra at the filming of a large crowd scene in Stern's movie. And in the coup de grace of this tour de force, Wagner successfully bluffs his way into Stern's studio, where he bamboozles the King of All Media for more than 10 minutes. Far from just another uncritical homage to a star, this is a first-person account of media manufacture cleverly disguised as media obsession. Wagner claims to be just another celebrity-crazed fan, but he's too self-knowing to really believe that, and the book, which works on a couple of different levels, belies his simplistic explanation. For starters, all those his faxes he wrote (and published here) are uniformly hilarious, worthy of show writer Jackie "The Joke Man" Martling. Wagner's ear captures the MAD Magazine sensibility of Stern perfectly. That voice continues throughout "Getting To Howard," as when Wagner spots Joey Buttafuoco's lawyer, Dominic Barbara, at a book signing for "Private Parts": "I don't know what Dominic was expecting when he came out to give the fans a once-over. Perhaps he thought he would be cheered. Howard's stray cats just can't accept the fact that the fans are there to see Howard -- not them ... We were making great sport of shoving our books as close to Dominic's face as possible. He was frantically signing the picture of himself while sweating like a pig. The situation was overwhelming him. I shoved my open book within a half inch of his face. I was tempted to snap the book shut on his fat nose ... The scene resembled a National Geographic wildlife film. Dominic was the sickly wildebeest about to be felled by a pack of wild hyenas ... I admit that I'm jealous of Dominic's nearly unlimited access to Howard, which is why seeing Dominic run for his life was a high point of the book signing." Later, however, Wagner admits to mailing Barbara and his wife a picture he took of them, cased in an expensive frame, in hopes it will get him invited to Stern's 45th birthday party. Wagner's energy and resourcefulness are something else. Less than six months after that first fax is read on-air, he realizes his ultimate fantasy by audaciously pranking Stern into thinking he's won an Emmy. And for a guy who wasn't even a regular listener until the end of 1995, it's remarkable that "Getting to Howard" got into stores less than three years after his odyssey began. (The book is filled with photographs taken by the author of Stern, his staff and various members of the show's auxiliary of misfits and lunatics known as the "Wack Pack.") "Getting to Howard" is rendered in a confessional style I found ingratiating. Wagner cheerfully recounts his radio-caller impulse that got him hooked on Stern in the first place; his opening anecdote about accidentally winning a contest on a children's call-in show opens the book on a deftly self-deprecating note. And it seems there are few extremes to which Wagner does not go to brush up against even the lamest outposts of Stern's empire (an entire chapter, for example, is devoted to manicky Stern hanger-on Kenneth Keith Kallenbach). Wagner pragmatically puts his photographer's credentials to good use, particularly with Stern's longtime sideman Fred Norris, who needs publicity shots of his band and is willing to hang with Wagner in order to get them. Another chapter is devoted to an on-air feud Wagner started with Stern regular Melrose Larry Green (lovingly illustrated with photos Wagner took of Melrose; in many of them Melrose's pants are down around his ankles). While Wagner's loathing of Melrose may be for show, he's genuine in his affection for Fred "Elephant Boy" Schreiber, who also rates a chapter and accompanying photo spread. In every chapter, Wagner is a dervish in motion, trying anything to get Stern's attention. But his asides are rather thoughtful, and he seems to have every major player on the program -- Stern, sidekick Robin Quivers, producer Gary Dell'Abate, Martling -- accurately figured out. I need hardly add that this is a book for a self-selecting readership -- people who don't mind looking at photographs of the semi-famous giving them the finger, wading through pages of scatalogical humor and reading faxes from various put-on characters such as Punjab, the Raj of All Tantric Sex. In the end, Wagner is not so much a Howard Stern fan as he is a content provider, supplying occasional grist for Stern's five-hour-a-day radio mill, posting zillions of incendiary messages on Prodigy's bulletin boards, developing rolls of film and, after all that, producing this laff-a-minute book (which, thanks to his wife's editing and a friend's book design, looks pretty darned spiff as well). But the surest sign might be Wagner's website, danwagner.com, a slick showcase of high-profile corporate photography that contains nary a mention of Howard. Having "gotten to Howard," Wagner is getting back to some real-life obsessions -- the kind that pay the bills.

    Will Disney's hardball tactics backfire?

    One of the hottest stories in broadcasting at this week's big NAB show was the rapid ascension of hostilities between networks and their affiliates. And in the center ring -- ABC, owned by Walt Disney Co., and its affiliates board, led by Hearst-Argyle Television, the largest non-network owner of ABC stations. Hearst owns the big rock candy mountain of TV stations in Kansas City; KMBC-TV is one of the top five ABC stations in the country. In my TVKC column Saturday, I outline the ABC-Hearst feud and the potentially turmoil it could cause for viewers if it continues to escalate. Both sides agree the future of free over-the-air TV as we know it is at stake. They just can't agree how to save it and their own hides at the same time. Read the story

    Kill your television


    Drawing courtesy TV-Free America Tonight is the first night of "TV-Turnoff Week." Supporters of the seven-day TV fast are recommending you read a book instead of turning on the tube. In that case, may I suggest The Greatest Generation by NBC's Tom Brokaw, The Century by ABC's Peter Jennings, or perhaps Dean Koontz's Mr. Murder, which will air as a made-for-TV movie next week? Seriously, I don't think TV-Turnoff Week is that farfetched an idea. But I don't like the implications of the group sponsoring TV-Turnoff Week, a pack of authors and journalists banded together and calling themselves TV-Free America. It is this group's unspoken agenda to convince enlightened not to take the moving image as seriously as the printed word. And that's just wrongheaded, as I argue in a essay that appeared Thursday in the Kansas City Star. Read my essay

    Nanny, nanny nanny, hey hey, goodbye

    From all around the world they've come -- letters demanding that CBS do something about "The Nanny," the long-running Fran Drescher sitcom that suddenly vanished from the network's schedule last month. Long a staple of CBS's Wednesday nights, the show was yanked after its ratings continued to dwindle downwards this winter. "The Nanny," in its sixth and final season, will return for a finale May 12 (not May 19 as previously announced). But there are four or five other episodes that have been produced that CBS won't put on its schedule. And that has fans seeing red. "DEAR SIRS MADAMS," begins one e-mail that was cc'd to me this week. "I REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT I WILL NO LONGER BE WATCHING YOUR STATION. I HAVE BEEN A CBS FAN SINCE MY GRANDMOTHER WATCHED GUNSMOKE IN THE 50'S. YOUR RECENT ACTIONS CONCERNING THE LAST EPISODES OF THE NANNY HAS PROMPTED THIS ACTION." Another reads, "I live in Uruguay but the same as so many friends from all over the world undertook a fight toward the CBS that since this decided to cancel our favorite program not emitting the last 6 episodes made by our admirable actors of this program, but the truth today we are needing of their help so that this program is not please canceled." Actually, the future status of "The Nanny" is not in any doubt -- there is none. The show has had six seasons on CBS and is now airing in syndication. During much of that span Drescher & Co. saved the network's bacon on Wednesday nights, where CBS has for years had trouble getting an audience at 8 o'clock. But after 100-plus episodes, only shows pulling in superb numbers get to continue. "The Nanny," anyone in Hollywood will tell you, has had a remarkable run, turning what appeared at first to be a one-joke wonder into a durable sitcom that has crept into the top five percent of all TV shows ever made. But back to those unaired episodes. I spoke with a CBS spokesman Tuesday, who assured me that "the next time you see Fran will be in the finale." The reason: "Payne," the new John Larroquette "Fawlty Towers" knockoff the network very much would like to see take "Nanny's" place Wednesdays at 8. The problem is that by itself, "Payne" pulled in such weak ratings at 8 p.m. that the network felt it needed to move the show to 8:30 and give it a strong lead-in at 8. Fans don't buy that explanation, either. "How do they expect to gain viewer loyalty when they take a show off the air for two months, preempt it one week, put it in a different time slot the next, and then pull the show only after advertising that the final seven episodes will be airing?" asks one e-mailer. "What makes things worse is that CBS will not even admit that their decision is wrong. Their little plan is not working -- Raymond is doing worse than The Nanny did in that time slot!" Well, let's talk about that for a minute. In the business, "Payne" needs what they call "sampling" -- getting people who seen the show to check it out and, hopefully, like what they see. (If they do, then the show will have what they call "traction." Isn't TV terminology great?) CBS made the call that "The Nanny," with its so-so Wednesday ratings, was not going to bring in the sampling levels "Payne" needed. So instead repeats of "Cosby" and "Everybody Loves Raymond," two strong Monday night shows, have been repeating Wednesdays at 8, followed by an episode of "Payne." The results have been uncertain at best; certainly it's too early to claim any "traction" for "Payne." But comparing "Nanny" ratings to "Payne" ratings, while it has a certain common-sense appeal, make no sense when you factor in the network agenda. "Payne" is a potential future hit for CBS; "Nanny" isn't. "Payne" will wither and die if it doesn't get exposed to enough viewers; "Nanny" is kaput after this season anyway. And looking at a "Raymond" repeat's 6 rating and saying, "Fran could beat that no praahhhh-blem," is to miss the point. Even if should could rope in a 7 rating, and the evidence is far from clear that she could, it would mean less to CBS than a 6 or 6.5 rating coming from a repeat of a show that brings viewers over from a stronger night. That said, will those unaired episodes see the light of day? They certainly will, and probably no later than this fall. Columbia Tri-Star, which owns "The Nanny" and is responsible for its syndication, will include all sixth-season episode in the repeat cycle that begins this fall, the second year of "Nanny" reruns in syndication. Currently all shows from the first five seasons are airing in repeats. A Columbia Tri-Star spokesman couldn't comment on the situation in Uruguay, Australia, Malaysia, Argentina, France or any other foreign markets represented by the e-mails sent to the TV Barn, but he was relatively certain that all "Nanny" episodes would eventually make it to those countries as well. After all, they don't make the studio any money sitting on the shelf. Oh, and this: the CBS spokesman had not ruled out airing the unseen episodes this summer, when of course the network will be dying for anything that's not a repeat. Anyone interested in more details about the campaign to get "The Nanny" back on the air before (or after) the finale should head to this unofficial "Nanny" website.

    Reader mail

    Kilby was here. John Gruber writes, "I love the new 'Late Late Show.' It's heresy for me to say this, but I'd rather watch Kilborn than Letterman (although I'm watching both most nights). Kilborn did a great job handling an awkward interview with the apparently stoned Kid Rock last week. Kid Rock was just being an un-funny jackass, answering his Buzzword hints with pseudo-Freudian eighth grader answers like 'penis' and 'sex.' Kilborn just shut him up after the second hint, said the interview was over, and smoothly cut to commercial. I think that was a situation Conan would have handled differently, and for the worse. I like a late night talk show host who's not a nice guy." Mike Phillips writes, "Having watched Craig Kilborn's first few shows, I'm depressed. In the half dozen shows I watched, I can't recall one original or inventive moment -- not ONE. If one is going to do lines about Kosovo and refugees they had best be brilliant or at least insightful. To my ear, Craig's attempts barely result in mild embarrassed snickers from his captured audience. It's your basic 'SNL' formula of recent years -- 'We wouldn't know funny if we stepped on it, so we're going to be outrageous.' Sorry, Craig, but you and your writers are not Sam Kinison or Dennis Miller. I bet CBS would never have let Tom Snyder say 'I came in my pants' as Craig actually did last week. Of course, Tom didn't need to." Long longtime reader Karla Robinson adds, "Why, oh why can't we have something different, like maybe a female talk show host in late night? There are plenty of likely suspects I'd suggest for the job: Bonnie Hunt, Merrill Markoe, Janeane Garofalo, or Paula Poundstone -- any of whom would offer an interesting change of pace from the rest. Hell, I'd settle for some female writers on these shows: on Kilborn's program I counted two women's names in the credits: line producer and costumer. Don't get me wrong; I do like the particular sensibility brought to the table by David Letterman and Conan O'Brien, but I just don't think we need yet another replica of those guys in this particular time slot. It's like the network suits think that women have a lock on the daytime talk arena and won't give women a chance in late night. Are the demographics of these late night shows so overwhelmingly male that the suits don't want to chance alienating any elements of an already small audience?" A reader who works at a radio station in Kentucky writes, "Just thought you'd like to know that the network has not wasted any time in making a spin-off for marketing Craig Kilborn. CBS Radio is now distributing the 'Five Questions' segment of the 'Late Late Show.' Like Letterman's Top Ten, it is designed to be run the morning after the show airs, and it appears that they are marketing it primarily to alternative rock stations. The program is syndicated by Westwood One, which already offers 'Top Ten List,' 'Last Night on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno,"' and 'Last Night on "Larry King Live."' All of which makes Westwood One the clear leader in last night's radio programming." Jaimie Birk attended a taping of Kilborn's show and writes, "I was surprised at how small the studio was. I knew it wasn't big, but it was even smaller than I expected. There were probably 100-120 people in the audience. The guy who was supposed to get us laughing, and excited, was a bit lame. Way too spastic. But the show itself was really funny. I was a bit disappointed when I heard who the guests were going to be (Merv Griffin, Charles Dutton, and the lead singer from Sugar Ray) ... but it turned out really good. Craig is the same (completely insincere, in a hilarious way) off camera is he is on. He looked a lot more at ease than he did in the first week. The taping went off without a hitch. They had to go back and get Roc's scar after the show was over, but that was it. It actually took longer to get seated than to watch the show, I think! Anyway, I had a great time. But then again, I think Kilby is hilarious, so it makes sense that I liked it." Men wanted. Meanwhile on the other coast Steve Cohn writes, "I work about a block away from the Ed Sullivan Theater and over the past two months, they've been asking males (myself included) to attend same day tapings of the Letterman show. It's happened to me about three times in the last month. This fits in pretty well, with what you were saying about how they are trying to get more males into the audience." Nuthin's on. Ed Bauman, responding to my article last week on the high levels of redundancy in cable TV content, writes, "The more space there is, the less innovative programming there seems to be. I have digital cable and get close to 90 channels plus some premiums (four HBOs and three Showtimes), and what do they fill it with? Discovery alone has managed to turn one channel into at least eight, but there isn't eight times more programming. It's like the Parkinson's law of air time -- the same programming expands to fill the available space. I couldn't care less about 500 channels based on what we have now." Rob Middleton adds this: "A few years ago I got into C-SPAN and watched it avidly. I watch less now, but I still count it as one of my favorite sources of programming. Odd, since I am not particularly interested in politics. I think it's that television's potential for community-building is largely neglected, even by stations which supposedly act 'in the public interest.' (That requirement seems to the major networks to mean airing a stream of public service announcements -- many of them aimed at kids and families -- at around 2 a.m. when ads aren't selling anyway.) Brian Lamb, the C-SPAN school bus, talking about presidents, visits to historical sites, talking with non-celebrity authors ... it all just feels so good and good for you."

    The NFL drag

    The annual NFL college draft is eye-blurring, less-than-riveting television. Even the most dogged Cleveland Browns fan had to be dozing during most of ESPN's seemingly endless weekend coverage of the 7-round draft. But don't blame Chris Berman and his crew, who cram more facts, stats, graphics, sound, video and personality into their draft coverage than you'll find in that EA Sports' "NFL Live '99" computer game. The difference is the computer game eventually ends. I watched the first two hours of the draft at home before heading to Kauffman Stadium, where I kept one eye on the Royals-White Sox game on the field and the other on a TV set in the suite turned to ESPN. Three hours later I headed home, tuned to Sports Fan Radio's coverage. And it was still the first round. My wife Donna refused to share our dinner meal with Mel Kiper, Jr., so I'm not sure when exactly Round 1 concluded. Suffice it to say that anything that moves slower than A Thin Red Line needs condensing. Why not hold the draft in private on Thursday and Friday, then publicly announce the selections on network television Sunday evening, a la the Academy Awards? Maybe Mike Ditka would show up in a backless evening gown. Rating ESPN's draft horses: I was out of the room and Donna was folding laundry when ESPN's new promotional commercial appeared showing their sports anchors auditioning for parts in Jerry Maguire. When I returned to the room, she could not stop her gut-bending guffaws long enough to explain the spot. Anything that can get Donna to laugh like that (and doesn't involve me in a prone position) deserves kudos. Quotes of note: "When does that NFL concubine start?"
    --Anonymous Kansas City sports-talk radio caller, prior to the NFL combine.
    GH: When the hell did it end? "We feel were giving up an orchard for an apple tree but it's a darn good apple tree."
    --Mike Ditka, on trading all of his 1999 picks and two 2000 picks for Ricky Williams, CNNSI
    GH: Ditka might want to stay our of apple trees or at least try climbing down instead of leaping out of 'em onto his noggin. "These top four quarterbacks (in the 1999 draft) aren't nearly in the class of (Peyton) Manning and (Ryan) Leaf."
    --Tom Hoeffler, Ourlads Scouting Service, ESPN Radio
    GH: Since when did people start using the word "class" and Ryan Leaf's name in the same sentence? "People who think Cordell Stewart can run, they ain't seen nothin'. Donovan McNabb will be the most elusive quarterback to ever play the position."
    --L-Dog, ESPN Radio host
    GH: Are you forgetting Art Schlichter? "All this and no beady-eyed guy with a weird on-air delivery."
    --Vince Cellini, promoting CNNSI's coverage of the NFL draft as opposed to what you might find on ESPN, CNNSI
    GH: I love it when you boys fight in public. "This whole thing started because one guy asked another guy, 'What time is it?'"
    --Steve Lyons, on how the nasty brawl at Veterans Stadium last Monday got started between shirtless (but far from belly-less) Philly fans, Fox Sports
    GH: The City of Brotherly Love never looked more luverly -- or shall we say blubbery? --Greg Hall is the former sports TV-radio columnist for the Kansas City Star and is now heard weeknights on sports-talk radio station KCTE 1510 AM.

    Roe, redux

    What if the Supreme Court reversed itself on a decision that guaranteed a right that is taken for granted by millions? And what if the fate of one person depended on how one Supreme Court justice voted? Those are two of the many legal and moral questions asked in "Swing Vote," airing 9 p.m. Monday on ABC. Executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer, in a departure from the action drama that defines much of his resume (including last year's ABC movie stinker "Max Q"), assembles a feature-film-quality cast to produce this substantial, character-driven drama. The story: Somewhere in the not-too-distant future the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationally. In the year since the court turned regulation of abortion back to the states, Alabama passes a law so restrictive that a woman who has an abortion in that state can be charged with first-degree murder. A woman named Virginia Mapes has an abortion and is convicted of murder. The Supreme Court is called into emergency session to rule on Mapes v. Alabama in an atmosphere of explosive public protest and polarized national opinion. Andy Garcia ("The Godfather: Part III") plays a newly appointed justice -- the swing vote -- who invites pressure from all corners and whose final call in the case is the movie's chief suspense. Robert Protsky plays the chief justice in search of a solid majority upholding the Alabama law, a master of the art of subtle arm-twisting among his fellow justices. The stellar supporting cast includes Harry Belafonte, James Whitmore, Kate Nelligan and Ray Walston as Supreme Court justices who try to sway the new justice. Lisa Gay Hamilton of ABC's "The Practice" plays the defendant Mapes. Both sides of the abortion issue are explored without reducing the people on either side of the divide to cliches. The arguments range from reasoned to passionate without simplifying the difficult moral and ethical components of the abortion issue. -- Harrison Wyman

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    Articles for week of April 26, 1999

    NOW what are they doing to "Homicide"?

    Some of us were just starting to get our hopes up that NBC would leave "Homicide," its outstanding Friday-night detective series, alone for a while. But along came "Providence." Its success at 7 p.m. positively affected "Dateline" at 8, giving it a huge ratings lift. But ratings for "Homicide" at 9 stayed pretty much where they were, which means we now find ourselves approaching renewal time with the future of Baltimore's best again in limbo. There may be a fate worse than death for this show, however: a makeover engineered by network bean counters. Horrifying as that sounds, it may be happening. During the April 9 episode NBC urged viewers to switch on their PCs and take a special "online survey." The survey, conducted by the Lou Harris polling firm, asked viewers to assess the pacing of the show, whether viewers would tune in an hour earlier if the show followed "Providence," and even how much each character "added to your enjoyment."
    Mike Giardello (Giancarlo Esposito) confronts a crazed dad (Ron Eldard) who takes his two kids hostage on tonight's "Homicide." (NBC Photo) Perhaps most insulting to longtime fans were the questions that asked viewers to rate each story line as "very entertaining," "somewhat entertaining," etc. These questions go to the heart of a longstanding dispute between the show's producers and NBC brass, who object to certain story lines and try to have them killed, such as last year's exploration of Bayliss' (Kyle Secor) bisexuality. Friday's episode demonstrates why "Homicide" is best left up to the experts. It revolves around a single story line -- a hostage crisis involving a dad and his two kids -- and the emotional and ethical torment it creates for chief negotiator Mike Giardello (Giancarlo Esposito in a moving performance). Like the Peabody-winning episode "The Subway," this episode breaks from the formula that dictates every episode needs two or three interweaving story lines to keep viewers riveted.

    Postcard from Stuckeyville

    Letterman executive producer Rob Burnett phoned in last week from the set of "Stuckeyville," his long-awaited comedy collaboration with Letterman writer Jon Beckerman. If you're thinking "sitcom" in the spirit of "Everybody Loves Raymond" -- the hit from Letterman's production company Worldwide Pants -- you're way off. This show is shot with a single camera and no laugh track. Burnett wants it to be a quirky, unconventional entry in either the half-hour or hour arena, like "The Wonder Years" or "Northern Exposure." (Which, and this is me talking, would make "Stuckeyville" a perfect candidate to follow the four Monday-night sitcoms on CBS and not that hideous "L.A. Doctors.") "There are dramatic things and hopefully funny things mixed together here," said Burnett. "It's very filmic. There's a lot of production value in it. I think when people see it they'll think they've seen a very good one-hour movie." The show is stocked with unknown talent, led by Tom Cavanaugh, whose name I'm probably botching. Viacom came in at the last minute as a co-producer with Worldwide, outbidding Disney and Fox by agreeing to move the show's production to New York City should "Stuckeyville" be picked up. But this of course raises a larger question: What of Burnett's tenure on the Letterman show? That, it turns out, is anyone's guess. Senior producers Maria Pope and Barbara "Gaines" Gaines have been filling in for Burnett while he has been in California shooting "Stuckeyville." But should the show get picked up, no question a transition will need to be made. This comes as no surprise to veteran Letterman watchers; three years ago, when former EP Robert "Morty" "Bob" Morton was fired, Burnett was presented with a choice: take Morty's spot and put his TV show dreams on hold, or go out to California. Letterman promised to give the project his full support when the time came if only Burnett would take the top job on the talk show. Burnett agreed, and now he says Letterman has been true to his word. "Dave is extremely supportive of this effort," said Burnett. "He knows how important it is to us." And if "Stuckeyville" gets picked up? "We'd have to figure it out," he said. "It depends on how big an order we get. I guess we'll tiptoe up to it."

    Serbia's silenced radio rebels

    It's said that in war the first casualty is the truth. That would certainly describe what happened to Radio B92 in Belgrade, Serbia's last remaining independent news source, after NATO warplanes began their bombing raids last month. Central Europe's best-known pirate radio station signed on in 1989, at about the time of Slobodan Milosevic's ascendancy, and the one has been a thorn in the side of the other ever since. Twice the Serbian dictator has tried to shut B92 down; twice it returned to the air, the second time through an ingenious system that piped B92 programming out of Serbia via the Internet to the BBC, which beamed it back in. But on March 24, the day the bombing began, authorities shut down B92 and briefly detained its editor-in-chief, Veran Matic. Ten days later, the general manager was replaced with a Milosevic toady and the station was turned into a propaganda arm of the state. The silencing of B92 ought to have sparked outrage among journalists in the U.S., particularly B92's peers in the electronic media. Instead, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News have fixated on just two stories from the war-torn area -- the bombing and the Kosovo refugee crisis -- and on gathering riveting visuals from the war to fill the hours in between NATO and State Department briefings. Adding insult to injury, this craving for visuals has turned out to be a huge gift to B92's enemy, Radio Television Serbia (RTS). Its government-filtered feed is used constantly as a source on newscast after newscast, resulting in hundreds of hours of free branding for RTS. CNN and the others take great care to point out RTS's editorial bent. But no one is asking the obvious question: What happened to the other Serbian news outlets? In this regard the Western media are playing right into the hands of Mr. Milosevic, who would prefer that the world forget B92 ever existed. The station's 50 full-time and 120 part-time employees have always prided themselves on their independent thinking. (The station's slogan is "Don't trust anyone, not even us.") But now, hated by the regime and shunned by the West, B92 is -- as Mr. Matic ruefully noted to me in a recent e-mail exchange -- "in the most independent position possible." Although he has been urged by friends to get out of the country, Mr. Matic is working with other B92 staffers to set up shop yet again. Considering he once circumvented a government shutdown by reading the news over loudspeakers in the streets of Belgrade, one must assume Mr. Matic is considering all his options.
    Veran Matic, editor-in-chief of Radio B92. We met in New York last fall on the day Mr. Matic addressed a panel marking the 50th anniversary of the United Nations human rights declaration. A compact and animated man, the 37-year-old Mr. Matic has spent 10 years staying one or two steps ahead of the henchmen who run Serbia, an experience that has refined his wonderfully morose (and characteristically Serbian) sense of humor. He recounted to me his attempts to get Westerners interested in bringing the Internet to the former Yugoslavia in 1993. Most people, he recalled, tried to talk him out of it. "People said the Internet was too sophisticated for us," he said. "They thought we needed tam-tams -- boom boom -- to communicate with each other." Fortunately Mr. Matic persevered, and with the aid of a Dutch company B92 became Serbia's first Internet service provider. (The station's robust Web site includes a large audio archive of newscasts in English and Serbian.) Later, with the aid of philanthopist George Soros, Mr. Matic set up the ANEM network to send B92 programming via satellite to 33 radio stations throughout Serbia. (The BBC uplinks the programs from the Internet to its transponder.) Only about 30 percent of B92's broadcast day was devoted to news and information, the rest to alternative rock and other indigenous genres. Last year the station's popularity among young listeners was recognized with an award from MTV Europe. For Mr. Matic, the battle with tyranny is not simply one of truth over propaganda, but of local culture over imported crypto-culture and good taste over appallingly bad taste. (This may explain why American TV networks are not exactly championing his cause.) "We support alternative youth culture that doesn't have any other outlet for its expression," Mr. Matic told me as we lurched toward the UN in a crosstown cab. "Progressive culture is always a threat to totalitarian regimes, which like to promote kitsch. In Yugoslavia the promotion of kitsch is monstrous. They base a great deal of their power on the promotion of kitsch: kitsch culture, kitsch TV, kitsch radio. "For example, South American soap operas. They are extremely popular in Yugoslavia. And so is this so-called 'turbo folk music' -- bad folk music with a techno beat and totally nonsensical, stupid verses. The people who are behind this music, even the authors of the lyrics, have very close ties to the regime. "That's why this technology, the Internet, is so important, because it's exactly the opposite of kitsch culture. In the Internet, you always have a choice. You always have an opposite view." The month after our conversation, Serbia's Parliament passed an absurd "information law" banning all unofficial media. But ironically it took the NATO bombs -- and the galvanizing effect it had inside Serbia -- to give Mr. Milosevic enough power to shut down B92. Mr. Milosevic is no more popular than he ever was, but with all of Serbia unified against NATO's attacks, Mr. Matic said the government has the wherewithal to crush pro-democracy voices like B92. So that leaves Mr. Matic to gather news like the rest of us, by monitoring the big 24-hour news channels that in turn rely heavily on Mr. Milosevic's RTS. "Radio-Television Serbia has always been the locomotive power of the Milosevic regime," Mr. Matic said in a recent e-mail. "What is different this time is that it is the most often quoted media outlet from Yugoslavia." Nor does Mr. Matic think that is a coincidence. "The most influential international networks have also come to resemble RTS," he said. "Most of their programs are live broadcasts from NATO briefings and news conferences, which serve the direct purpose of propaganda. These are then re-run innumerable numbers of times, same as on the RTS." A Dutch-based group has formed in solidarity with B92. The "Free B92" website plans to carry news from inside Serbia and to rebuild B92's links to the outside world. (Note: This piece appears in the April 26 issue of Electronic Media. As the issue was going to press, CNN did in fact devote its Sunday newsmagazine "NewsStand" to covering Mr. Milosevic's lock on the Serbian press.)

    Reader mail

    Aubyn Fulton writes, "I found myself agreeing with the first half of your article on situation comedies, only to find that the program I see as most emblematic of the problem, you made an example of the solution ('It's like, you know ...'). Given the financial incentives I can understand why Peter Mehlman argues that the problem with TV is that it doesn't imitate itself enough. The problem with Melhman's show is not that there are characters isomorphic with 'Seinfeld,' it is the pathetically derivative attempt to be amusingly quirky (not to mention the stale LA/NY comparisons that get embarrassed laughs at even the lamest comedy clubs). 'It's Like, You Know...' is not so much a rip-off of 'Seinfeld' as it is a rip-off of 'Jerry!' -- the fictional pilot. Maybe it will be a hit in Japan." Actually, it's a hit right here, but point taken. Lewis Leiboh writes, "Just in case you haven't heard enough stories about Letterman ticketing and male-centric audiences: A member of my fraternity here at MIT was called recently by a Letterman staffer (we're pretty sure she got the number from digging around on our web page) to offer us 25 tickets for the upcoming April 26th show. She said that they wanted it to be all guys. So, we'll be making the trek to New York City next week, which everyone's pretty excited about." Our pal Joe at the Lizz Winstead tribute page writes, "Forget about NBC's new show 'Everything's Relative.' It was already done way back in 1987 in the form of another sitcom on CBS starring Jason Alexander. Also, when I see Fox's 'Family Guy' I can't help but think of CBS' animated flop from '93, 'Family Dog.' I believe it was CBS' last foray into prime-time animation." Michael Jones read the sampling of outraged e-mails from fans of "The Nanny" that appeared on the TV Barn website last week. He writes, "Hey, it's sad if your favorite program is getting axed -- but for God's sake, how about adopting a healthier value system? I know I was depressed for awhile after the last episode of 'Hogan's Heroes,' but I don't recall taking it out on the network. Get over it!" (P.S. Another reader informs me that CBS did agree to air the unseen "Nanny" episodes over the summer, thanks apparently to the hue and cry that went out among Nannyfans.) Not surprisingly, a couple of anti-TV cranks found their way to the TV Barn website -- undoubtedly for the first and last time -- to leave an e-mail about my essay on TV-Turnoff Week. One wrote, "Your argument that if 'enlightened' people stopped watching television that the MTV people would dominate the airwaves is the same as arguing that if the marijuana users of America stopped that all that would be left is hard users. Look, when compared to any worthwhile activity, television is worthless. You can give me the classiest TV program (oxymoron!) and it would not compare to watching the sunset, playing with your kids -- or meditating about how much of your life was wasted absorbing commercial messages. Yes, you make your living doing this, and for that reason your opinion is the least expert on what life would be like without the box. But consider, would our lives truly ever miss 'Suddenly Susan'? It might be true that programming could improve, as if a few jewels would justify an entire medium. But its too late -- the idiots have won, and TV will never be rescued as long as money is to be made and people are willing to be manipulated for mindless escape." A fascinating point, until you consider a slightly rewritten version could be used against the publishing and film industries.

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    Articles for week of May 3, 1999

    Athletes' feats


    Mickey Mantle, No. 37 in the ESPN list and subject of this weekend's "SportsCentury." (Photo: ESPN) Every Friday night at 10:30 p.m., ESPN's "SportsCentury" continues its countdown of what, according to its panel, were the 50 greatest athletes of the 20th century. These half-hour programs have truly distinguished themselves at a time when the biography program has become the most easily copied product in all of cable TV. This weekend brings us to Mickey Mantle, whose recent and well-publicized death, combined with his iconic status in New York, have produced a wealth of high-quality video stock. "SportsCentury" should have no trouble telling his story. But where this series has stood out is in its treatments of superstars whose names are only that to us today -- names. Take "Big" Bill Tilden. Even those who dimly attach some distant glory to his name probably had little idea of his impact on the sport of tennis before seeing ESPN's "SportsCentury" profile of him a few weeks back. Tilden, who ranked No. 45 on ESPN's list, brought tennis into the national spotlight in the 1920s. He was as big a star as Babe Ruth and like Ruth, could completely dominate his opponents. But the first superstar of tennis had an amazing rise followed by an equally spectacular (and tragic) fall, which probably explains why he is so dimly remembered today. Among the people who tell his story were journalist and Tilden biographer Frank Deford, sportswriters Bud Collins and the late Shirley Povich, and fellow tennis players from Don Budge to Jimmy Connors. From them we learn the story of a determined young man who overcame the death of his parents and almost every significant relative close to him by throwing himself completely into his sport. Tilden was the first American to win at Wimbeldon and won six consecutive U.S. amateur championships and seven straight Davis Cup titles in the 1920s. Then he turned professional and won $500,000 in a 7-year period in the 1930's, beating top amateurs in their 20s when he was in his early 40s. His social circle included Charlie Chaplin and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Tilden lived an openly homosexual lifestyle that was not an issue when he was at the top of his game and fame. But by the time of his 1947 conviction for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, his exile from high society was complete and he became a pariah in the sport he had made popular. He taught lessons where he could and played professionally at whatever venues would have him, but died in 1953 at age 60, broke and alone. A small gravestone was the largest monument to his career--until this extraordinary tribute by ESPN. --Harrison Wyman
    View ESPN's list so far of the top 100 athletes of the century

    Farewell, Hugh Downs

    Just last night, in preparation for adding it to The TV Critic's Toolbox, I was re-reading Danny Schechter's terrific book The More You Watch, the Less You Know and in the chapter describing his years as a producer on ABC's "20/20" he had this to say about the incomparable Hugh Downs, who announced his retirement Wednesday: "[Downs] was brought in after Roone [Arledge, ABC News president] did a talent search that consisted of turning on 'Good Morning America' and seeing Hugh doing a guest spot. By then, the onetime 'Today' sidekick had been reduced to anchoring 'Over Easy,' a talk show for seniors on PBS. ABC brought him back to the majors because his calming and reassuring presence could draw attention away from the hyperactive editing and add a credible and familiar personality to the mix. "I came to admire Hugh, although his job usually came down to reading lines he didn't write. He also fronted/reported some segments including some I produced, always displaying a broad intelligence and an earnest desire to get it right. He was one of the best-known personas in TV. His book On Camera (out of print) was subtitled My 10,000 House on Television, and he is one of the few TV personalities to have had that much face time on the tube. He is also a licensed airplane pilot and once recorded an album of folk songs. As the American head of a committee that supports UNICEF, he held strong international interests, was very absorbed in science and aerospace, and wasn't shy about expressing independent opinions such as speaking out for marijuana decriminalization or even criticizing self-censorship in television. 'The reason for a growing concern about censorship is because it does exist, in both subtle and unsubtle forms,' Downs wrote in one of the annual reports of Project Censored, which covers suppressed stories in America." Hugh Downs first rose to fame in the 1950s as Jack Paar's brainy sidekick on the "Tonight" show, then in the '60s as host of "Concentration." (About Paar, Downs once famously cracked, "He doesn't have mental disease -- he's only a carrier.") He leaves "20/20" after 21 seasons. Read the story

    David Letterman's network time killer

    For once, David Letterman had an A-list newsmaker guest booked for Wednesday's "Late Show": the Rev. Jesse Jackson, fresh from liberating three U.S. hostages in Serbia. But what do you do when that guest is stuck in traffic between the airport and the Ed Sullivan Theater? Fall back on your skills as a broadcaster and ad-lib like mad. Easy to say, hard to do, but Letterman did it, turning in one of his more entertaining tour de forces of late. As a result of Jackson's delay, the oddball secondary guest -- bass fisherman Denny Brauer -- became the lead guest and part of the longest interview on fishing ever conducted outside of cable TV. As part of his segment, Brauer was to show off his casting skills by standing across stage and aiming for a barrel in front of the band. But he had trouble hitting the target. After several casts, Letterman broke in with the perfect laugh line: "Take your time." A hand-held camera showed Jackson's limo pulling up at the Ed just as musical guest singer Kelly Willis was ready to go on. Willis performed and an out-of-breath Jackson was sitting with Letterman at about 12:32 a.m. when the show came out of commercial. Jackson got a standing ovation from the studio audience, then Letterman turned to him and said, "I'm sorry, we're out of time." Just kidding. The two paneled briefly but productively, after which Letterman managed to get Jackson to agree to appear on Thursday night's show. Then it was "good night," theme music and out. --Harrison Wyman

    Tonight Show version 4.0

    To the best of my recollection I can recall three distinct prior incarnations of the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" website. Now the latest and -- I'm afraid to admit -- the greatest version is out. No two ways about it, this site is beaut. In contrast to David Letterman's enjoyable website, filled with offbeat fan-oriented features like "Rob Burnett's Questionquest Bonanzafest," there's a very practical side to the Tonight Show's online presence. There's info on getting tickets, watching the show in high-definition TV, as well as staples of earlier websites: previous jokes and upcoming guests. Also, if there was ever any doubt that Leno has completely co-opted Letterman's franchise on found comedy, it is erased by the portion of the site that allows readers to contact talent bookers in four, count 'em four, areas: "If you've seen a celebrity in an early performance they'd rather forget, click STAR SEARCH. If you know a youngster with an interesting talent, click KIDS STUFF. If you or someone you know has or does something just outrageous, click ODD BALLS. And if you're a kid with an amazing collection that you want to show off, click COOL COLLECTIONS." Got it. Not that this website doesn't like to show off -- in fact, there's a virtual #D tour of Leno's Burbank studios on the site. But overall, and perhaps inevitably, the site seems more businesslike, more corporate, like "The Tonight Show" itself. Gone, apparently, is the rundown of last night's broadcast. Meanwhile, the chat page gets synergized with all the other NBC properties: CNBC, MSNBC, etc. Hey, I came here to see the company guy, not the company, all right?

    Reader mail

    Stephani Shelton writes, "I just want to thank you for being one of the very few if not the only U.S. media person to pay some attention to the disaster that the NATO action has been for the independent media in Serbia. I am a TV/radio reporter and producer who spent three weeks in Serbia last fall. Three of us led a series of U.S. Information Agency-sponsored seminars for independent broadcast journalists in a number of Serbian cities. I have really been upset at the total lack of interest our own brethren have had in the fate of Radio B92 and the rest. I have kept in touch by e-mail with others of our group who live in Belgrade and who accurately predicted back in October what would happen -- both to ANEM (the collection of independent media organized by B92 chief Veran Matic) and to Milosevic's opposition -- if NATO bombed. As you so accurately pointed out, ANEM is all but dead now. Please do a follow-up at some point when there is additional information." Will do. Todd Douglas, a right-thinking student at Texas A&M, writes, "I'm outraged at those who refer to 'Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn' as 'frat boy humor.' I'm a frat boy, and so are all my pals, and judging from the first couple weeks of this show, it's clear to us that the producers are aiming ridiculously low. If you like non-stop racist and homophobic humor, set-ups without punchlines, and a host who thinks good looks compensate for a lack of talent, this show's for you. But I'm guessing that the only person laughing at Kilborn must be Conan O'Brien." Aaron Mullins adds, "It occurred to me that Craig has become the Jay Leno of ironic detachment. Which begs the question: What would happen if instead of wanting everyone to like him, Jay Leno were a complete jerk -- but kept telling the same lame jokes? Well, his show would suck. The interviews would be intolerable. The li'l comedy bits would be strained. And of course, the set would be as over-stuffed as the head of the host. Good grief, Tom Green does better interviews! Jon Stewart isn't the best fit for 'The Daily Show' but at least Stewart is a genuinely funny person making the most of the mismatch." To which Bill Cmelak adds this: "During a segment of 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart' last night, April 27th, they aired a segment about a 'toad tunnel' in Davis, California that was of questionable importance to that community. I know that I saw the exact same segment last year and most likely on 'The Daily.' I'm wondering why this segment was rebroadcast, especially since there was no mention of it being a repeat." Actually, it happens with surprising regularity -- old material repurposed as though ripped from today's papers. Kinda like how Gilbert Gottfried and Rhonda Shear used to put fresh wraps on the smelly old fish that constituted USA's late-night movie lineup. Michele Lellouche finds my defense of "Homicide: Life in the Street" touching. She writes, "I'm not sure NBC can ruin a show that is already a shadow of what it once was. Now, if the suits' decision is to send Ballard, Gharty, and especially Falsone to a grisly end (preferably to face the BadBabyAliens on 'The X-Files'), then I'm all for it. 'Homicide' has been a disaster this season and hands down the most disgusting scene I have ever seen on TV (even beating the Paris-pulls-out-his-tongue sequence on 'Star Trek: Voyager'), was that peach-eating 'seduction' involving Ballard and Falsone. On the other hand, if I could watch just Bayliss, Munch, Lewis, Stivers, 'G' -- and I'd even take Mike G. and Shepard -- I'd be happy again." One of my regular correspondents read John Zipperer's article on that episode of "Xena: Warrior Princess" that was pulled by the show's distributor after Hindi groups protested. The reader, whose identity I'll keep a secret, writes, "While they've pulled that episode from distribution, it isn't going to vanish from the hands of fans. There is a copy of the satellite feed recorded onto DVCAM video tape (digital video). I know -- I recorded it for someone else. I won't say who, or where, other than it is still on this planet. Even if they do re-cut the episode to the liking of these religous fanatics, the original will be making the rounds for years to come." Dave DeLeersnyder knows why broadcast stations are losing audience shares. "The annoying antics of local affiliates have sent me reaching for the remote," he writes. "I am not just talking about pre-empting network programs or the lack of quality in local commercials. What about the contest to see which station can cover more of the screen with severe weather logos? Or what about the Fox station that flies its logo across the screen, complete with sound effects, in the middle of a program? (That station has had its stereo audio channels reversed for months -- the logo goes left to right while the sound goes right to left.) Why is 'NYPD Blue' in stereo one week and in mono the next? Why were the recent Academy Awards aired in mono until almost the very end, when it magically changed to stereo? Home theater systems are becoming pretty commonplace and people do notice details like these."

    About TV Barn | The TV Critic's Toolbox
    Read Other TV Critics | Late Night Lineups | Kansas City TV/radio
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    Copyright ©1999 Aaron Barnhart. Redistribution prohibited.

    This page last updated 17-Jul-99 11:05 AM

    >>> Aaron Barnhart's TVBARN.COM About TV Barn
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    Late Show News
    Contact TV Barn

    Articles for week of May 10, 1999

    Goodbye, "Homicide"

    Hope you enjoy tonight's and next week's episodes of "Homicide: Life on the Street," because they're the last ones you're gonna get. With its Monday upfront presentation to advertisers approaching, NBC is leaking out details of its 1999-2000 season schedule, and one detail stands out -- "Homicide" is gone, replaced by some nitwitted hour show that's supposed to be a better fit for "Providence" on Fridays. "Homicide" fans knew trouble was brewing when NBC executives began to complain in the press about the show's inability to achieve "Providence"-sized ratings since the pishy melodrama took to the airwaves in January. The Friday edition of "Dateline" had gotten a lift, but not "Homicide." The next bad sign came last month when NBC commissioned an online Harris Poll to test viewer attitudes about the storylines and individual characters on "Homicide" (without, by the way, informing the show's producers, Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana). See my earlier story. At least one fan took the poll in stride -- here's her brilliant parody that imagines the Globe Theater polling its patrons about the quality of the Bard's plays. Of course, we all laugh a little coarsely this morning now that we know it's strictly gallows humor. Here according to NBC are the storylines for tonight's and next week's episodes: Show Title: HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET
    Episode Title: THE WHY CHROMOSOME
    Date: 1999-05-14 22:00:00
    Original Air Date:
    Press Listing: PLAYING ROUGH -- Despite the gender tension among the squad members, Sheppard (Michael Michele) and Ballard (Callie Thorne) team up to investigate the brutal death of a 14-year-old gang member, making them the first women in the unit to take a case without a male partner. Ironically, their search introduces them to 'tough' female gang members who are capable of more than the detectives would have imagined. As a favor to a friend of Billie Lou's (Ellen McDuff), Munch (Richard Belzer) pays a visit to an abusive ex-boyfriend who can't seem to control his temper. Giancarlo Esposito, Peter Gerety, Clark Johnson, Yaphet Kotto, Toni Lewis, Kyle Secor and Jon Seda also star.

    Show Title: HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET
    Episode Title: FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES (Season Finale)
    Date: 1999-05-21 22:00:00
    Original Air Date:
    Press Listing: SEASON FINALE BRINGS SOUL SEARCHING FOR BAYLISS -- Detectives Bayliss (Kyle Secor) and Sheppard's (Michael Michele) frustration is justified when their three trips to the courthouse result in the Internet murder suspect Luke Ryland's (guest star Benjamin Busch) possible release. Bayliss' emotions get the best of him as he foolishly unleashes his anger on State Attorney Ed Danvers (Zeljko Ivanek). His behavior sends him soul searching about his future, wishing that the guidance of his old partner Pembleton (Andre Braugher, not appearing) would come shining through. Lieutenant Giardello (Yaphet Kotto) reflects on his years as a Lieutenant as he prepares for a possible promotion. And Munch (Richard Belzer) and Billie Lou (Ellen McElduff) take a step in a more permanent direction as a couple.     Read the story FULL COVERAGE: Check out this fansite

    "Joan of Arc": TV event of the year


    Leelee Sobieski as the self-styled Maid of Lorraine in CBS' miniseries "Joan of Arc," airing Sunday and Tuesday on CBS. (Photo: CBS/Alliance) I didn't grow up Catholic, didn't know much about the legend of Joan of Arc until fairly recently. (My earliest remembrance of her, in fact, was from the theme song to "Maude." Remember? "Lady Godiva was a freedom rider/She didn't care if the whole world looked/Joan of Arc with the Lord to guide her/She was a sister who really cooked.") But I've grown fascinated with her remarkable story, and after previewing the CBS miniseries "Joan of Arc," Part 1 of which airs Sunday, I think others will be intrigued as well. I'm pleased to say that for once a network TV miniseries has approached its subject with more than a passing interest in historical veracity -- and a surprising respect (even for CBS) for the mysterious religious aura surrounding Joan. Who will ever know what voices were really talking to her? But this much we know: They really told her to unify the crown of France, and Joan really did, though perhaps more in death than in life. Read my essay from Thursday's Kansas City Star on "Joan of Arc" Visit the CBS "Joan of Arc" educators' website

    In and out

    We're getting a lot of anxious e-mails from fans of "bubble shows" -- those TV series whose renewals for the 1999-2000 season are in great doubt if not grave peril. They're all asking the same question: Is my show in ... or out? So in an attempt to satisfy everyone's curiosity, TV Barn has created the In And Out page and stocked it with only the freshest renewal/cancellation news and select scuttlebutt on all your favorite endangered series. It'll be updated constantly and there will be a link on this page between now and the networks' fall schedule announcements the week of May 17. Just added: HBO.

    In and out

    Last update: 13-May-99 2:25 PM

    ABC

    Renewal likely or announced Boy Meets World, Drew Carey, Dharma & Greg, Hughleys, Monday Night Football, NYPD Blue, Practice, Sabrina, Spin City, SportsNight, Two Guys a Girl, Whose Line Anyway, Wonderful World of Disney Cancelled or renewal unlikely Cupid, Fantasy Island, Secret Lives of Men, Strange World, Two of a Kind Future status unknown America's Funniest Home Vids, Big Moment, Brother's Keeper, Dick Clark Bloopers, It's like you know, Norm Show, Vengeance Unlimited Retiring more or less gracefully Home Improvement

    CBS

    Renewal likely or announced Becker, Candid Camera, Chicago Hope, Cosby, Everybody Loves Raymond, Kids Say, King of Queens, JAG, Martial Law, Nash Bridges, Touched by Angel, Walker Cancelled or renewal unlikely Buddy Faro, Maggie Winters, Magnificent Seven, To Have and To Hold Future status unknown Diagnosis Murder, Early Edition, LA Doctors, Payne, Promised Land, Sons of Thunder, Turks Retiring more or less gracefully The Nanny

    NBC

    Renewal likely or announced ER, Frasier, Friends, Just Shoot Me, Law & Order, Pretender, Providence, Suddenly Susan, 3rd Rock, Will & Grace Cancelled or renewal unlikely Conrad Bloom, Encore! Encore!, Homicide, Trinity, Wind on Water, Working Future status unknown Caroline in the City, Everything's Relative, Jesse, NewsRadio, Profiler, Veronica's Closet Retiring more or less gracefully Mad About You

    Fox

    Renewal likely or announced Ally McBeal, America's Most Wanted, Beverly Hills 90210, Cops, Family Guy, Futurama, King of the Hill, Party of Five, PJs, Simpsons, That 70's Show, X-Files Cancelled or renewal unlikely Brimstone, Costello, Getting Personal, Holding the Baby, Living in Captivity Future status unknown Guinness World Records, Millennium, World's Funniest, World's Wildest Police Videos Retiring more or less gracefully Melrose Place

    UPN

    Renewal likely or announced Dilbert, Malcolm & Eddie, Moesha, 7 Days, Star Trek Voyager Cancelled or renewal unlikely DiResta, Family Rules, Guys Like Us, Legacy, Mercy Point, Reunited, Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer Future status unknown America's Greatest Pets, Between Brothers, Clueless, Home Movies, Love Boat, RedHanded, Sentinel

    WB

    Renewal likely or announced Buffy, Charmed, Dawson's Creek, Felicity, For Your Love, Jamie Foxx, Steve Harvey, 7th Heaven, Zoe Duncan Jack Jane Cancelled or renewal unlikely Army Show, Hyperion Bay Future status unknown Rescue 77, Smart Guy, Wayans Bros. Retiring more or less gracefully Sister Sister, Unhappily Ever After

    HBO

    I wish every network did this! HBO has its own page to update fans on the status of returning series (meaning that if it ain't here, it ain't returning). Go to HBO's "Returning Champions" page

    Calling all casts

    Thanks to our pals at Backstage Pass, we're able to offer you still more casting sheets for upcoming production of the fine quality shows you've come to expect from network TV. Among the new additions: The full directory of casting sheets

    To these dish owners, big is beautiful


    A proud C-band dish owner (not Clyde Taylor) shows off his hardware. Clyde Taylor is my kind of satellite-dish owner. When I reached him the other day, he was in the midst of what he called one of his "wild hares" -- dubbing some of his old LP's onto a reel-to-reel tape deck. That would be a 10-inch reel-to-reel tape deck, the kind you used to find in recording studios. Mr. Taylor salvaged one a while back. Given that introduction, you'll not be surprised to learn that Mr. Taylor does not own one of those late-model, pizza-pie-pan satellite dishes. Oh no. Mr. Taylor's dish is a 12-foot, Reagan-era, C-band supersaucer occupying the backyard of his Kansas City, Kan., home. He bought the dish in 1985, just as the Kansas City Royals were making their run to a world championship. Rather than tune in the World Series on a local station, Mr. Taylor went straight to the network "wild feed," allowing him to watch the games without the commercials and even catch the occasional off-handed announcer's remark during the breaks. Aside from a couple of network favorites like "Law & Order," Mr. Taylor spends most of his TV time watching the dish. He gets dozens of cable channels for free because their signals are unscrambled. Another 60 or so premium channels are unlocked by a subscription service. And often he just surfs the various satellites orbiting the Western Hemisphere until he finds something interesting to watch. Mr. Taylor is in many ways typical of the nation's 1.8 million C-band satellite dish customers. He was disfranchised from local TV long ago, partly over signal quality, partly over program quality. He's a hobbyist who likes to tinker with "old tech." He likes the prices of C-Band (eight HBOs plus all those premium channels for less than $30 a month). Above all, he wants the most out of his TV viewing experience and will go to unusual lengths to have it. On Saturday nights, Mr. Taylor has found he can point his dish to a certain transponder and watch the following week's batch of "Home Improvement" reruns when Disney downloads them to affiliates. Mr. Taylor also discovered a wild feed with the televised preachings of the Rev. Gene Scott, a California-based minister he likes because "he gives Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson hell." Of course, not everyone has Mr. Taylor's sense of adventure or his appetite for what is the ultimate channel surf. There really are 500 channels in the C-band universe -- but to find them all requires hours of conditioning, learning to navigate from bird to bird with a remote-controlled apparatus that even ardent dishheads admit is clunky and confusing. There are dozens of satellites with 24 transponders apiece, and each of those with a certain directional that must be located more or less exactly, lest the picture be lost in a snowstorm. Given such obstacles, and the service required on these aging mechanical hulks, even many C-band dish owners have begun to see the virtues of small-dish DBS. Since DirecTV went live in 1994, the ranks of big-dish owners have been been thinning out rapidly. Officially -- meaning those C-band homes with some subscription service -- their numbers fell below 2 million last year, making C-band only the fourth most popular pay-satellite system in the U.S. (The unofficial count is somewhat larger because many big-dish owners simply watch what's out there for free.) Although small-dish makers don't need to poach on C-band's turf, and the satellite industry's trade organization even set up a special program to support big dish owners last November, many C-band enthusiasts believe the powers that be -- cable programmers -- are not sorry to see so many switch to DBS. "We were always the black sheep," says Tom D., a veteran big-dish user in western Illinois. "They never wanted us. The commercial industry had been charging several hundred thousands dollars for dishes. It wasn't a consumer product. But then in the very early days, in '79, when we started putting up dishes, it was like ham operators and boat builders and all kinds of people got together and created a crazy industry out of pretty much nothing because they decided, 'Hey, these signals are available from the sky -- we want them.' So they started fiddling with converted old microwave equipment, radar dishes, all kinds of stuff." Tom and his partner Darryl R. (who don't like giving out their last names) are bleeding-edge dishheads. They've even figured out how to broadcast their weekly radio show on C-band. (It involves a friendly uplinker and a spare audio channel.) They're also hams and have a website. If they're convinced the big dish has a future, it's probably with good reason. Emigres new to America will usually find C-band offers far more channels from the home country than DBS. People in search of value will like C-band, provided they can clear the technical hurdles. Many former C-Band homes will give their big dish away to anyone willing to haul it off. And thanks to General Instrument's 4DTV device, you can continue to pull in wild feeds long after the industry has converted all its uplinks from analog to digital. But more than anything else, having a great big steel spider web in your yard means you are someone who has had it with television as usual. You want to watch the CBC. You want BET Gospel. You want 16 Spanish-language channels instead of two. And you want to watch Dan Rather prattle on aimlessly during a commercial. Comedian and actor Harry Shearer has a web page full of such classic wild-feed moments: Tom Brokaw taping a Sinatra death announcement months before the fact; Bill Gates caught swearing; Sam Donaldson and Diane Sawyer getting chemistry lessons from their producers; Mary Hart freaking out. "I still love C-band," Shearer told me in a recent e-mail. "As I explain to my friends whenever they let me, it boils down to this: Little dish is buying retail, big dish is buying wholesale. How were you brought up?"

    Reader mail

    Rus Cooper-Dowda read last week's column by John Zipperer (posted to the website Tuesday) and writes, "I strongly disagree that most sci-fi and religion don't mix well. I have been teaching a course called 'Star Trek Theology' for many years, both in the real world and on the net. If your stance comes from Humanism, there is all sorts of religious/ethical stuff to work with in sci-fi. The ongoing course has always been intergenerational, too. That adds all sorts of perspectives to the mix." Hm, "Star Trek theology" ... Michael Jones read my recent item about NBC using an online viewers' survey to test various elements of "Homicide: Life on the Street," asking if they found various storylines or characters 'very entertaining,' 'somewhat entertaining,' etc. He writes, "I'm sure a good portion of 'Gone with the Wind' viewers were disappointed that the South ultimately lost the war. I'm just grateful Margaret Mitchell didn't feel compelled to conduct a poll prior to writing the script, possibly jeopardizing the movie's historical authenticity. By the way, I found Ashley Wilke's character 'less than enjoyable,' and wonder to this day why he received so much play in this film. In spite of this needless role, I found the movie 'very entertaining'--albeit lengthy." Ed Bauman writes, "Why has no one written an article or commentary in any entertainment publication about those annoying icons that litter the corners of the screen on all channels these days except the movie channels? What started out as a station ID (done between shows, thank you) has now become a complete visual intrusion. What's next -- studio logos on screen in theaters? Doesn't anyone else find these intrusive? They're so bad on some channels that I simply skip all programming on them." Jeffery To writes, "I watched Seth Green on with Jay Leno, and then later flipped on Kilborn, and Green was on the same night (wearing the same clothes)! Tonight, same thing, only with the Dixie Chicks. And maybe with Suzanne Somers, only I remember her on 'PI' and then Kilborn. Maybe I've watched that episode of 'Larry Sanders' one too many times, the one where David Spade goes on Leno even though he's suppose to be on Larry's show the next day (or something like that). Isn't there some Hollywood rule about guests going on two shows on the same day? The least they could do was change clothes."

    When "Kids, don't watch that show about the serial killer" isn't enough

    By the time the average young viewer reaches the age of 18, s/he'll have watched some 200,000 violent acts committed on TV. And, it seems, Mom and Dad are pretty much powerless to stop it. That sense of helplessness, fed by the out-of-control feelings still reverberating from Littleton, Colo., have renewed talk about holding the media responsible for its pimping of violence -- especially TV, where the old Black Power saying about violence being as American as apple pie is demonstrated daily. TV executives continue to pooh-pooh the link between on-air violence and any untoward social effects. But as I explain in this article appearing on the front page of Monday's Kansas City Star, the correlation between watching too much TV and aggressive behavior among kids is irrefutable. (The leading researcher on these issues told me in an interview that the link is as statistically strong as the one between cigarettes and lung cancer.) And everyone but the TV execs seems to know it. But will anything change as a result? Read t he story

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    This page last updated 30-Oct-99 1:15 PM

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    Articles for the week of May 17, 1999

    TV's big week

    NEW YORK--A lot of folks think the most important month in TV is September, when viewers decide which new fall shows sink or swim. Not true. Every year between mid-April to mid-May, dozens of TV pilots are filmed, fiddled with, tested before audiences and voted on by program executives at the networks.

    This week, those shows -- boiled down from hundreds of ideas pitched to the networks in the past year -- were announced in midtown Manhattan in lavish gala presentations made to network advertisers. TV Barn was there, and took notes.

    Read The 1999 Upfronts: Barnhart's Notebook, the most complete, some might say meticulous, breakdown of the fall previews anywhere, by clicking here. (CBS and UPN upfronts will be posted later this weekend.)

    Postcards from New York

    Monday:

    Take a stroll through midtown Manhattan these days, especially the area between 42nd and 49th streets west of Sixth Avenue, and you can't help but look up.

    Midtown, as Kurt Andersen describes it in his electric new novel Turn of the Century, is "the Infotainment Zone," the 500 acres that "the big owner-operators of American culture" call home.

    Once a frowsy district of peep shows and inexpensive diners, the Zone has become a continuous overhead mural of high-wattage signs, seven-story video screens and stores that offer thematic multimedia shopping "experiences."

    If you watch any TV at all, you've seen the Zone's unofficial totem, One Times Square, with its NBC Astrovision jumbo-screen, the restored block-long news "zipper" and, overlooking it all, a giant Cup of Noodles from Nissin Foods (while I was there an Asian tour group took turns posing for pictures in front of it).

    One block south, high above The Disney Store is a collage of signs promoting ABC's "Wonderful World of Disney," the new live-action "Tarzan" movie and Disney's GO Network -- the uncomplicated past, recycled present and hype-driven future of infotainment in a nutshell.

    The eye wanders across the street to three bright billboards for "The Lion King" above the New Amsterdam Theater, home of the Broadway version of Disney's hit film. Here ABC will unveil its fall TV schedule later this week to its advertisers.

    Ad agencies are reporting shortages of tickets to the event. You hear a lot about the declining appeal of network TV, but here in midtown Manhattan, where "The Lion King" is derided as strictly tourist fare, ABC's fall preview is a show these New Yorkers don't want to miss.

    The NBC Fall 1999 Schedule:

    Monday:
    8:00 Suddenly Susan ... 8:30 Veronica's Closet
    9:00 LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT
    10:00 Dateline

    Tuesday:
    8:00 3rd Rock ... 8:30 THE MIKE O'MALLEY SHOW
    9:00 Just Shoot Me ... 9:30 Will & Grace
    10:00 Dateline

    Wednesday:
    8:00 Dateline
    9:00 THE WEST WING
    10:00 Law & Order

    Thursday:
    8:00 Friends ... 8:30 Jesse
    9:00 Frasier ... 9:30 STARK RAVING MAD
    10:00 ER

    Friday:
    8:00 Providence
    9:00 Dateline
    10:00 COLD FEET

    Saturday:
    8:00 FREAKS AND GEEKS
    9:00 Pretender
    10:00 Profiler

    Sunday:
    7:00 Dateline
    8:00 THIRD WATCH
    9:00 Movie

    Tuesday:

    Remember when David Letterman ruffled not a few feathers at the Peacock Network by referring to his NBC bosses as "pinheads" and "weasels"?

    It seems the network chiefs have adjusted. Monday, as NBC presented its fall schedule to affiliates and advertisers, in a high-octane spectacular at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, the network poked fun at itself continually, and not always kindly.

    NBC has learned a lesson -- if not from Letterman then from Ronald Reagan -- that self-deprecating humor is a way to win friends and appear humble. Always a good thing when you're the No. 1 network in TV.

    The highlight was late night's Conan O'Brien entertainingly rude monologue, which didn't poke so much as impale his employer.

    Of his former boss Warren Littlefield, who exited NBC a few weeks ago. O'Brien joked, "He's now working on an off-Broadway production of 'Conrad Bloom' " (one of last season's Littlefield flops).

    The new NBC slogan is "Let Us Entertain You," which, O'Brien noted, is better than last year's slogan, "Let Us Squander an Incredible Lead" (NBC's ratings are down).

    And with the news that General Electric, NBC's owner, had ordered an edit of the miniseries "Atomic Train" to downplay the nuclear-catastrophe angle, O'Brien had his clincher. GE, he said, ordered yet another cut this morning. "Now the movie is about a stolen bicycle loaded with cheese."

    Then O'Brien introduced one of his show's more foul-mouthed characters, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, who brought down the house with more NBC jokes, none of which I can print here (but see Barnhart's Notebook, below).

    The advertisers roared at Triumph's act. NBC's brass did too.

    The WB Fall 1999 Schedule

    Monday:
    8:00 7th Heaven
    9:00 SAFE HARBOR

    Tuesday:
    8:00 Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    9:00 ANGEL

    Wednesday:
    8:00 Dawson's Creek
    9:00 ROSWELL

    Thursday:
    8:00 POPULAR
    9:00 Charmed

    Friday:
    8:00 Steve Harvey
    8:30 For Your Love
    9:00 THE DOWNTOWNERS
    9:30 Jamie Foxx

    The ABC Fall 1999 Schedule:

    Monday:
    8:00 20/20
    9:00 Monday Night Football

    Tuesday:
    8:00 Spin City ... 8:30 It's like, you know ...
    9:00 Dharma & Greg ... 9:30 SportsNight
    10:00 NYPD Blue (Nov.)/ONCE AND AGAIN (Sep.-Oct.)

    Wednesday:
    8:00 Two Guys a Girl ... 8:30 The Norm Show
    9:00 Drew Carey ... 9:30 OH GROW UP
    10:00 20/20

    Thursday:
    8:00 Whose Line Is It ... 8:30 THEN CAME YOU
    9:00 WASTELAND
    10:00 20/20

    Friday:
    8:00 The Hughleys ... 8:30 Boy Meets World
    9:00 Sabrina ... 9:30 ODD MAN OUT
    10:00 20/20

    Saturday:
    8:00 Movie

    Sunday:
    7:00 Wonderful World of Disney
    9:00 SNOOPS
    10:00 The Practice

    Wednesday:

    The WB likes to call itself "the network of choice for those under 35." What it really means is that those under 35 are its viewers of choice, and that means this is my last year as one of the WB's preferred viewers.

    Actually, judging from the network's fall lineup, that may not be such a bad thing. Aside from the new "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" spinoff "Angel," I had trouble identifying with any of the shows the WB unveiled Tuesday.

    Perhaps it's because I like to see a few black and Asian faces on TV (the WB cancelled three black comedies and the new series are all lily white).

    Perhaps it's because one new show, "Jack & Jill," in which two gals fight over one guy like it's the most normal thing in the world, strikes me as the most chauvinistic premise since "Men Behaving Badly."

    But most likely it's because I have no interest in reliving the kinds of teen and 20-something angst present in every WB show -- career angst, relationship angst, even UFO angst ("Roswell").

    WB viewers (median age 27) are half the age of CBS's (53). Okay, so I'll never feel young watching CBS. But I won't feel old, either.

    The CBS Fall 1999 Schedule:

    Monday:
    8:00 King of Queens ... 8:30 LADIES MAN
    9:00 Raymond ... 9:30 Becker
    10:00 FAMILY LAW

    Tuesday:
    8:00 JAG
    9:00 60 Minutes II
    10:00 JUDGING AMY

    Wednesday:
    8:00 Cosby ... 8:30 WORK WITH ME
    9:00 Movie

    Thursday:
    8:00 Diagnosis Murder
    9:00 Chicago Hope
    10:00 48 Hours

    Friday:
    8:00 Kids Say ... 8:30 LOVE OR MONEY
    9:00 NOW AND AGAIN
    10:00 Nash Bridges

    Saturday:
    8:00 Early Edition
    9:00 Martial Law
    10:00 Walker Texas Ranger

    Sunday:
    7:00 60 Minutes
    8:00 Touched by an Angel
    9:00 Movie

    The UPN Fall 1999 Schedule:

    Monday:
    8:00 Moesha ... 8:30 Mo'Nique
    9:00 Grown Ups ... 9:30 Malcolm & Eddie

    Tuesday:
    8:00 Dilbert ... 8:30 Shasta McNasty
    9:00 Secret Agent Man

    Wednesday:
    8:00 7 Days
    9:00 Star Trek: Voyager

    Thursday:
    8:00 WWF Smackdown!

    Friday:
    8:00 Blockbuster Video's Shockwave Cinema     The Fox Fall 1999 Schedule:
    Monday:
    8:00 TIME OF YOUR LIFE
    9:00 Ally McBeal

    Tuesday:
    8:00 ALLY ... 8:30 That 70's Show
    9:00 Party of Five

    Wednesday:
    8:00 Beverly Hills 90210
    9:00 GET REAL

    Thursday:
    8:00 MANCHESTER PREP
    9:00 Family Guy ... 9:30 ACTION

    Friday:
    8:00 RYAN CAULFIELD
    9:00 HARSH REALM

    Saturday:
    8:00 Cops ... 8:30 Cops
    9:00 America's Most Wanted

    Sunday:
    7:00 MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE ... 7:30 King of the Hill
    8:00 The Simpsons ... 8:30 Futurama
    9:00 The X-Files     TV Barn was banned from the Fox upfront presentation, so the only info you'll get on their fall season is this unmediated, publicity-rich web page.

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    Copyright ©1999 Aaron Barnhart. Redistribution prohibited.

    This page last updated 17-Jul-99 11:06 AM

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    Articles for the week of May 24, 1999

    Reader mail

    David Thiel of WILL-TV in Champaign-Urbana writes, "I was a little surprised that in the inevitable scapegoating that went on following the Columbine massacre, TV violence would once again be brought up as one of the great ills of our society. And yet, I've heard neither a single citation of any TV show that the two gunman were alleged to have watched nor any indication that they showed any particular interest in television. When critics link school shootings to increasing TV violence, I wonder what shows they're talking about. Growing up, we had shows that were incredibly violent in comparison to today's offerings. I raced home from school to devour cartoons like 'Speed Racer' and 'Jonny Quest,' full of fiery car crashes and villains who were routinely gunned down by Our Heroes. In later years, I was addicted to shows like 'The A-Team,' in which hundreds of rounds of automatic fire were sprayed each episode without causing a single injury. "The one area that appears to be completely off limits--with critics and broadcasters alike--is that of news broadcasts. Why is that? I spent most of the two weeks following the Columbine shootings in Hawaii, yet even in that remote paradise I saw hour after hour of coverage, packaged with slick graphics and catchy titles like 'Terror in the Rockies.' Every piece of evidence, every police report--no matter how insignificant--was given star billing in the nightly newscasts and the endless morning show and newsmagazine regurgitations. Scenes of fleeing students were looped again and again, while we were treated to interviews with everyone who might possibly have had any connection to the shooters, the victims and their families. Two kids, armed with a small cache of weapons and a twisted dream, were allowed to monopolize the airwaves of every major TV news outlet for more than a week. With all of the attention paid to this incident, is it any wonder that there have been so many recent reports of would-be copycats? There are an awful lot of people seeking their own fifteen minutes of fame. Unfortunately, it looks like we will continue tilting at windmills like 'Walker, Texas Ranger.'" George Karibjanian writes, "Loved your piece on C-Band satellite dish owners. I've been a C-Band owner for about four years and television viewing has never been the same. Our favorite use of the dish is not just to view the syndicated programming wildfeeds, but the network programming wildfeeds. For example, we were able to see the season finale of 'The Practice' by setting the satellite and VCR to tape at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday morning and then viewing it at our leisure. Others in my family have DSS and price wise, it doesn't compare. To purchase the maximum programming on DirectTV and USSB, including the purchase of the West Coast network affiliates, costs about $85 or so, whereas the same programming (minus HBO Family and CourtTV and a few other basic cable channels that are digitally encrypted) costs about $190 every three months, or $63/month. One last thing -- like DSS, you need southwest exposure for the dish, but if your house faces the south or southwest, the big dish can be mounted on a pole right up against the back wall of the house so that the dish is raised to fit over the pitch of the roof and not take up any backyard space." Yes, but it makes your house look like an earth station. Darren Raymond writes, "Thanks for your columns on 'Homicide.' On hearing the news of its cancellation, I can't say I feel much anger or contempt for NBC, not because they're entitled to run their business as they see fit (though of course they are), but because in some ways it seems the show's producers are willing to go gentle into that good night. One gets the sense that seven years of fighting for the show have taken their toll, and Fontana and Levinson have 'Oz' on HBO and an upcoming UPN series to attend to. The cancellation of 'Homicide' is truly the end of an era at NBC. The network that gave us 'Hill Street Blues' and 'St. Elsewhere' and 'Law & Order' and 'Homicide' is now looking to build its schedule around 'Providence.' Whatever they decide to show Friday nights, I know I won't be watching anymore." Brad Romano writes, "Michael Moore was visiting 'Open Mike' last week to talk about his new show and dropped a HUGE compliment to host Mike Bullard. He said when he started the new show for Bravo that he sat his staff down and showed them a week's worth of episodes of 'Open Mike' because he wanted his show to be relaxed, and ironic. I can't remember his exact quote but it was something along the lines of American TV having no sense of irony and that the people that were trying it weren't really that funny. Mike B. was absolutely floored by the compliment." For those of you who have no idea what he's talking about, "Open Mike with Mike Bullard," originating from Toronto, is the freshest and funniest late-night show in North America -- and we can't get it in the U.S. John Jacobs writes, "I'm one of those who loves 'Politically Incorrect' and I'm 51 years old. I've been a viewer since Comedy Central and I think the transition to ABC was pretty good. Now, however, they seem to be tinkering with things for no apparent reason. Used to be the announcer did the voice over with the lineup for the night and then introduced Maher. At the end of the monologue, Maher said, 'It's all been satirized for your protection.' During the applause, he moved to the seating part of the set and introduced the panel. Now Maher is introduced first and while he's walking out, guests are announced over the applause, which makes the walk and handclaps seem stagey and contrived. He no longer says it's all been satirized, either, which I always thought was a clever way to wrap up the monologue. "Last summer I attended a taping of 'PI.' Maher came out before the show started and took questions from the audience. Some of that was pretty amusing. He made a crack in the monologue about something that had been said in the pre-show banter. Big laugh. My brother attended this Monday's taping. Maher didn't come out before the show. My brother asked an usher why not. The usher made a sarcastic remark. 'He's a star now ...' I really love the show and watch it almost every night. I hate to see them messing with it to no apparent advantage." Arpegeis writes in, no doubt in response to something I wrote here (though I can't figure out what), but his comments on the evolution of "Star Trek: Voyager" are worth reading, context or no: "The original cast had three years to develop some sort of TV personality. They failed miserably. Okay, the writing was pretty atrocious too, but Jeri Ryan can act and of course, she's not unattractive. I've noticed that minus the three good episodes a year (and the five horrible ones), what's wrong with the rest is that the writing stops after 45 minutes. The ending is just slapped on or they just wander around the set until the credits roll. While I think the fault lies in the inconsistent writing (one week, Janeway cries over a girl and her lost puppy, the next week she doesn't bat an eye over losing 17 crewmembers), it's ultimately the acting and the personalities. Gene Roddenberry may have been bad at the day-to-day producing stuff but he was a damn genius with casting. After 30 years we're still interested in seeing the original cast and after 15 years we're still interested in the Next Generation. And after that ... a bunch of corporate focus-group mamby-pamby candy asses." Michael Jones writes with a great idea no one thought of during pilot development season: "A show loosely based on the real life relationship of entertainment execs Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg would make riveting television, and hopefully someday will make it into ABC's fall lineup. The show could have a meaty tone, such as the late 'Homicide,' but might work better as a benevolent, off-beat comedy along the lines of 'The Odd Couple.' This would be more fitting of Disney. The setting for the show could alternate between Michael and Jeffrey's luxury high-rise apartment and their corporate offices---with occasional visits to their attorneys. It would veer from the typical sitcom in that there would be very little dialogue, with most of the communication taking the form of e-mails. This would require viewers to remain especially attentive so as not to miss subtle jokes and plot twists. A riveting first episode might consist of Michael and Jeffrey attempting to identify which one of them is the apartment slob, leaving dirty laundry scattered about -- and who made off with Jeffrey's prized coin collection." And reader Daribus wants me to plug this website of fans concerned that "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven" may be cancelled.

    The new fall season in Haiku

    Why plow through page after page of practically unreadable PR descriptions of the new 1999-2000 season TV shows when they are reduced to 5-7-5 verse by our own Tom Heald? Read the haiku

    From FCC's bad boy to Citizen Nick


    Nicholas Johnson Nick Johnson is not your typical Iowa City, Iowa, school board member. It's doubtful any of his colleagues on the board were ever denounced by Spiro Agnew, or had Bob Dole call for their resignation, or saw their face on the cover of Rolling Stone. A quarter century after his tumultuous tenure on the FCC ended, Mr. Johnson is stirring the pot again, not only serving on the local school board but writing newspaper columns that routinely infuriate other officials in the school district. "Here I am on the school board, getting myself into trouble again," Mr. Johnson says, with a lick of mischief in his voice. In truth, say both his admirers and critics, he can't help himself. Since being appointed the nation's maritime administration by Lyndon Johnson at the age of 29, Nicholas Johnson has not been shy about his opinions. Even today, as a visiting professor of law at the University of Iowa, he cannot resist the urge to lecture, whether to media professionals in Georgia (the republic) or educators in his home town. When he was appointed to the FCC in 1966, Mr. Johnson was 32, the youngest commissioner ever. His confirmation sailed through; Congress was more interested in LBJ's pick as chairman, made the same time as Mr. Johnson's selection. But in the seven acrimonious years that followed, it would be the FCC's enfant terrible who captured the headlines. He bickered with broadcasters and Ma Bell, dissented -- often scathingly -- with majority decisions, and accused his fellow commissioners of kowtowing to "Big Television and Big Business." He took his battles to the op-ed pages of the New York Times and other papers and wrote two incendiary books while in office. He ridiculed the FCC for going after radio stations that played songs with drug lyrics while at the same time giving violent TV shows a free ride. He encouraged viewers to challenge the license renewals of station owners if their local news wasn't serving the community. And he urged boycotts of commercial TV, which he once called "the foremost enemy of intelligent consumerism." As one of his last acts, Mr. Johnson even testified against the man named to succeed him, James H. Quello, calling his appointment "abysmal and preposterous." In a way, he was a product of his time. He wore his hair long. He identified openly with the social causes of that era, notably Ralph Nader's consumer movement. In 1972 Bantam published Test Pattern for Living, which may rank as one of the strangest books ever written by a sitting federal official. A true period piece, the book's even-numbered pages featured quotes from such philosophers as Paul Goodman, Charles Manson and Frank Zappa, while on the odd-numbered pages Mr. Johnson weighed in on a mess of topics, from aerosol sprays to advertising, from the quality of the American diet (poor) to the quality of TV news (worse). He was only one man, and often cast the sole dissenting vote on agency matters. In 1972, Judith Martin wrote in the Washington Post that the broadcast industry largely dismissed Mr. Johnson as a "radical young gadfly commissioner." But he probably poisoned a proposed megamerger between ABC and ITT (small potatoes today but a big deal back then) with his harsh 85-page dissent. He did push successfully for TV stations to air anti-smoking ads. And he was the driving force behind the prime access rule, which he thought would encourage alternative-minded TV producers, rather than Paramount and the King brothers. Yet one doesn't have to agree with his point of view to wish someone like Mr. Johnson were on the FCC today. At a time when communications are undergoing unprecedented changes -- technological, economic and in content -- the level of public debate about these matters is appalling. Inside the FCC, the sharpest voice seems to belong to Harold Furchtgott-Roth, an enthusiast of continuing deregulation. There is no one on the commission to provide counterpoint to Mr. Furchtgott-Roth, which is to say there is no Nick Johnson. Not long ago, I came across Mr. Johnson's massive website, a compilation of seemingly everything he has written or has been written about him, with links to scores of articles published since 1996 and a 333-page bibliography going back to the early 1950s. I'm too young to recall Talk Back to Your TV Set -- which Mr. Johnson published in 1970 and now makes available for free from his website -- but I was amazed at how well the book holds up today. In it, Mr. Johnson anticipated nearly every tectonic shift to come in the telecommunications landscape. He predicted the ongoing consolidation of media companies and the demise of fin-syn. He foresaw the transformation of cable from a rural antenna service into a media giant that could dispense dozens of channels and eventually support computer networks. (Alas, his hope that cable "might be a vigorous and useful check on the big telephone monopolies" turned out wishful.) Predictions aside, the book contains a spirited discussion of the role of mass media in the lives of ordinary Americans that is as fresh and insightful today as when Mr. Johnson wrote it 30 years ago:
    "I think it is fair to ask what these network executives are doing. ... What right has television to tear down every night what the American people are spending $50 to $60 billion a year to build up every day through their school system? Giving the people what they want? Nonsense."
    I decided to call up Mr. Johnson, and in the course of two long phone conversations we wandered all over the media map, though everything we discussed seemed to be connected to everything else, much as it is on his website. As for the major policy issues he raised 30 years ago -- media ownership, the lack of diversity in mass media, the industry's denial of responsibility for media violence, the poverty of noncommercial programming on American TV -- they are still with us. But Mr. Johnson is patient and an optimist. "I've had public health people tell me they can still see in tobacco consumption, epidemeological statistics, the impact of those anti-smoking spots 30 years ago," he says. "I think some of what has happened in tobacco policy has clearly been an improvement." "We do have a cumulative effect," says Mr. Johnson. "It was Thomas Paine in Common Sense who said, `Words pile up and afterwards men do things. First the words.' "

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    Articles for the week of May 31, 1999

    The upfronts, live and in person

    Many of you have written me (or told me in person) how much you enjoyed my daily entries from the 1999 upfront presentations. Now you can read the final accounting of the upfront process, a story that appeared in Thursday's Kansas City Star and on better wire services. All in all, it was one of the swiftest upfronts in memory, with a record $7 billion in ad inventory being committed in the week following the last of the presentations. Read my story

    Another swell sweep for cable


    Triple H applies the sledgehammer move in yet another quality moment from the WWF, the No. 1 reason USA is No. 1 in cable. (Photo: WWF) I chatted Tuesday with Tim Brooks, the senior vice president of research at USA Networks (owners of USA, Sci-Fi, and Home Shopping), one of my regular sources and one of the top numbers guys in television. He gives great background and even better sound bites; more importantly for me, he knows the history of television and can give current news items the context they often sorely deserve. (Brooks is co-author, with Earle Marsh, of The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946-Present.) Brooks and I have talked in the past about when cable would break through an important psychological milestone: At what point in time would the average audience for cable exceed the average audience for broadcast, at all times of the day, all year 'round, even those weeks when the broadcast networks were rolling out their new fall shows? A year ago, Brooks was projecting it would happen by the end of the 1999-2000 season. But that was before cable went and had another stellar season (30 of the top 36 cable nets were either up or flat in audience compared with last May). So this time around I asked Brooks if he thought he'd have to move up his projections. He wouldn't say for sure; darned numbers man that he is, he talked about having to wait until "second quarter" was over to "plug in the actuals." But he was obviously "encouraged" by the year the big cable networks had. As for USA, cable's top-rated network, ratings were up 10 percent year-to-year, thanks to wrestling -- oops, I mean sports entertainment. And it was breathing heavy down UPN's neck all season. Brooks said USA delivered about 1.9 million homes on average, compared with UPN's 2 million. (Probably that won't happen again this season, in large part because UPN got wise and put wrestling on its schedule, too.) I told Brooks about something that had struck me about the ratings in my own market, Kansas City. In the past year viewing levels have actually gone up, but the share of the audience watching broadcast channels is down. In other words, people are watching more TV because of cable. Brooks confirmed the trend ("Cable has clearly reversed the softening of viewing levels that were happening in the late 1970s"). So much for the idea that only broadcast networks create "appointment" television. People are clearly making dates with cable networks, and sometimes with individual shows, as in the case of the WWF, "South Park" and other programs. And yet the networks put their all into the May sweep, or so it seemed. Lots of minis, movies and special episodes, including the series finales of "Home Improvement" and "Mad About You." To which Brooks joked: "Yeah, they're getting awfully good at ending shows; I'm not sure about launching them." (In fairness, USA's track record with new series isn't that great. And how dare they cancel "Duckman"!) "I've always said the two things that could change that," said Brooks, referring to cable's steady rise, "are government regulation, although that doesn't seem likely right now, or if the broadcasters finally cut the Gordian knot of abandoning viewers in the summer (and putting on some original programs). But they seem more intent in taking money from their affiliates, which is fine for us."

    Reader mail

    Damone writes, "How refreshing to have Bob Costas back at the helm of 'Later.' It harkens back to my college days, when NBC's late-night quality extended from 11:30 to 2:00: First the consummate talk show, then the perfect anti-talk show, and finally, an intelligent interview program that struck exactly the right note for its time slot. To watch 'Later' now is to see how far it has fallen: 'Tonight Show' cast-off comedy bits to fill time, marginal NBC stars as guest and hosts so that you have to flip a coin to guess which is which, and, the ultimate, Rita Sever needing a co-host to fill the 14-odd minutes of air time. Although Costas has sadly moved on to bigger and better things, is the idea of a full half-hour of thoughtful give and take between an interviewer and guest that foreign?" Jeanne Nicole writes with one of those hilariously pedantic letters that may actually be longer than my original capsule review. "I was reading with interest your review of the new Rand-bashing movie, 'The Passion Of Ayn Rand.' Being an Objectivist, I noticed one small error and one large one, which I should respectfully like to point out. First, you said: 'Rand, the author of such libertarian classics as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged...' You didn't call her this, but I want to begin by saying that Ayn Rand was certainly *not* a Libertarian with a capital L in any way, shape, or form! In fact, she loathed that group. She denounced them and their party because they stole some of her political ideas and used them and her name to lure young minds into their party, without giving her credit and while ignoring the entire remainder of her philosophy. To call her books 'libertarian' using the concept, rather than the proper noun, is therefore misleading. Her philosophy is much more than just politics! Politics is just one branch of the five areas covered by philosophy, and one which is dependent on and determined by the others. If you want to call her works by a political term, 'capitalist' would be correct and not misleading. "Second, you said: 'The movie is filled with smoky discussions of Rand's "objectivist" system ...' Her philosophy has a proper name: Objectivism, with a capital O. Just as I would not dream of addressing you as 'aaron barnhart,' so it is not correct or proper to refer to her works as 'objectivism' with a small o because the latter is a concept, not a proper noun. And just as you are unique and individual, so is her work, to which she gave that name." John Schneider writes, "I think one would have to be a fool to try to refute the evidence that entertainment violence influences children towards violent behavior, as you have pointed out. What I find disturbing is a lack of responsibility of parents to acknowledge this and place their children's welfare above their own self-interest. I've lost count of the number of R rated movies I've attended only to see several parents with toddlers and grade schoolers in tow. I remember a particularly bizarre moment when I was watching the opening scene of 'Rising Sun,' where you get to see someone have sex with a woman on a boardroom table, after which she's strangled. My wife and I were sitting behind a family with four kids ranging from about 3 to 9; we scanned the theater and found no fewer than 20 children well under the age of 10." And after I quoted an executive who called "Dateline Monday" the "unsung hero of the NBC schedule," Michael Jones wrote, "If this show develops a good jingle, I believe it will no longer be an unsung hero. The words to this jingle should be aimed to lure 20-somethings to the show, and yet carry a classic sound so as to retain older viewers. A possibility (sung to Petula Clark's 'Downtown'): When you are lonely/And you don't have a date/You can always watch/Date-line..."

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    Articles for the week of June 7, 1999

    Under the big top

    Next week, I'm attending the 1999 Cable Show in Chicago, the industry's big confab. Thousands of people representing the nation's cable networks, cable system operators, program providers and the ever-burgeoning global market will get together to show off their upcoming programs and hopefully make a few deals. It's the first floor show I've attended since NATPE in January of 1998. Here's my account of that visit, highlighted by the discovery of Portugal's answer to "The Honeymooners."

    "This American Life," the TV show

    "South Park" and "The Sopranos" have really changed the game. Now, cable networks and even a couple of broadcast webs are desperate to find the next daring critical and ratings hit and to sign it to a deal before their competitors do. That's what radioman Ira Glass has been finding out this week while pitching the TV version of his popular Public Radio International show, "This American Life." Glass is publishing an account of his pitch sessions all week at the Slate magazine site. In Tuesday's installment, Glass and his partners in crime refine their message after his use of the word "pretty" almost ruins one pitch session. Read it ... Visit the "This American Life" website (Thanks to reader Dan Pittman for pointing it out)

    Tony Tony Tony


    CBS kept it Short and sweet. (Photo: CBS) CBS staged one of the better Tony ceremonies in recent memory. PBS, well, that's another story. It would seem the producers of public TV's opening hour watched the Academy Awards and decided to emulate the worst of Oscar's habits, especially those endless clip segments showing how they do it behind the scenes. (Hint: If you're watching the first hour of a Tony Awards broadcast, you already know what directors, choereographers, and orchestrators do.) As for CBS, what did the loss of Rosie O'Donnell mean? Aside from a precipitous drop in the ratings, not much, except for a predictable opening number on CBS, "There's No Business Like Show Business" instead of Rosie's previous "Parade of Divas." And after the evening's entire lineup of presenters appeared onstage, joining Bernadette Peters and Tom Wopat in the "Berlin" tune, Calista Flockhart was on hand to throw out the first award, perhaps to convince the men in the viewing audience that they were watching a World Series game on Fox. The broadcast maintained a steady rhythm of musical numbers from the nominees and presentations, punctuated by several inspired hosting pairs. Past Tony winning tandems including "Mame's" Bea Arthur and Angela Lansbury were alternated with the modern duos such as Christian Slater and Scott Wolf, who've shared the same character in "Sideman." The "no-host" awards show is a time-honored tradition -- Oscar did it for years in between the long hosting runs of Bob Hope and Johnny Carson -- and it would appear it has returned to fashion, as evidenced by the rotating hosts at the Tonys and the "hostless" Daytime Emmy Awards last months. The Tonys are, and always will be, a niche program with low numbers. But they remain the sole yearly look at "The Great White Way" most people ever get. Each year CBS is rumored to gut it from its summer schedule. It'd be a shame for these neon lights to dim. -- Tom Heald

    Reader mail

    Kenneth Lee writes, "Many of the shows on TV are similar in content because they are written by members of the Burditt family: George, Joyce, and sons. George and Joyce were former writers for the American Greeting Card company in Cleveland. They went to California and George wrote for 'Laugh In' and several other forgettable spin-offs before getting the head writing job on 'Three's Company.' Joyce wrote the semi-bio 'Cracker Factory' before taking up the new family trade as a TV writer and churning out 'Murder, She Wrote,' among others. Then followed that unbelievably bad show written by son Jack, 'Just Shoot Me.'" And Michael Jones, taking note of Connie Chung's recent comment (in my Thursday story on the upfronts) that maybe Nixon was right all along, writes, "In hindsight, Nixon was right about a lot of things. The most obvious ones that come to mind are that we would get out of Vietnam 'with honor,' and that the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters was motivated by national security interests. So it is refreshing that media sentiment if finally shifting in his direction. Who knows -- perhaps at some point there will even be a TV series celebrating his persona. 'Everybody Loves Richard' might be a good title. The show could be a drama/comedy about a misperceived, ambitious politician whose light-hearted/amiable side is only revealed within the framework of close friends and family. A good opening scene might be Richard inadvertently stepping on the tail of Bernstein, the family dog, after he retrieves the morning newspaper (Washington Post), and then silencing the dog's yelps by calling him an expletive-deleted 'bleeding Democrat' -- prompting hearty laughter from awakened family members."

    Cable has local news singing the blues

    Kansas City, the 33d-largest TV market, is probably a lot like your market. Viewing habits here are strictly conventional, though occasionally off the beaten track (like "Today" show averaging a puny 8 share, thanks to a weak NBC affiliate). Most of the market watches cable on recently-upgraded systems with 70 or more channels to choose from. And at certain appointed hours -- 5, 6 and 10 -- most TVs that are on are tuned to news. So I feel obliged to tell you about a momentous change in viewing patterns going on in Kansas City, because it's probably happening where you live and work, too. And it's happening quickly, more quickly than many would have imagined. Like any other journalist at the end of a sweeps period, I get the 20-day Nielsen report faxed to me and look it over for trends in local news. Usually I'll find one or two newscasts have surged to champagne-popping heights, while one or two have slumped, with the rest about where they were a year ago. But what grabbed my attention this time was the data listed in the rightmost column -- the one marked "Other." As anyone who has glanced an overnight report knows, "Other" means cable. In fact, there's a theory popular with broadcast executives that local stations draw "appointment" viewers while cable attracts random flippers. Seen this way, "Other" can also mean "none of the above," viewers choosing not to choose. In Kansas City, in the month of May, the "Other" column had an emphatic message for every station manager in the market: Kansas Citians -- and by extension viewers everywhere -- are flipping like never before. Ten o'clock is a case in point. A year ago, cable was averaging a 24.6 rating/41 share opposite the late local news for the 10-to-10:15 quarter-hour. In May, that average soared to 31.0/49 share. I followed the "Other" column up the page. Everywhere, cable share was up dramatically. Last year at this time, the shares were centered in the mid-40's for cable; now they're in the low 50's. In prime time, the average for cable in my town a year ago was a 45.4 share. Today it's a 51.3 share -- up 13 percent in 12 months. In my market cable's lead-out at 10 p.m. was a 50 share; just two years ago that number was 39. More alarming is that, in a town known for its highly-rated newscasts, viewers are clearly starting to lose the habit of switching over to local news. At 10 p.m., for instance, cable usually loses a few ratings points back to broadcast. But the attrition last month was only two-thirds what it was a year ago. And cable's overall rating and share were higher in 1999 than in 1998, which in turn was higher than in 1997. During that same time, the combined share for late news in my market fell from 70 to 62. It was once widely believed that channel proliferation would hurt the big cable networks. Instead, it's hurting the ones you'd expect to get hurt: local TV stations. In May 30 of the 36 biggest cable networks were up or steady in the ratings year-to-year, with warhorses like USA, ESPN and Nickelodeon actually showing double-digit gains in prime time. In fact, the HUT levels (households using television) in my market were up substantially year-to-year. Yet with the exception of our CBS affiliate, local stations didn't benefit. It was cable that drove the HUT levels up, not just at 10 p.m. but all day long. None of this bodes especially well for local news in any market. Everywhere local newscasts are down across the board: Tampa, Philly, Seattle, and probably your market, too. And here's the kicker: Cable isn't just stealing audience from local TV. It's repurposing the content of local TV, re-using many of the ideas that used to be the exclusive domain of local newscasts and building entire programs or even whole channels out of them. Lifetime, for example, counter-programs late local news in much of the country with a newsmagazine, "New Attitudes," that runs stories on travel, makeup, health, consumer tips and working-woman concerns. In many cases the stories are better researched and more stylishly presented than similar segments on the local news. And just wait until Discovery Health signs on in August. Does anyone seriously doubt that Discovery will do every story your local healthcare reporter has done in the past year, more authoritatively and with higher production values? As cable expands its programming into more and more niches, cable viewers find themselves with this choice: Switch over to local news, get a few headlines you already heard on CNN, Fox News or the Internet; watch a couple of crime stories you'd just as soon read about over breakfast; and catch the scores that have been flashing on the ESPN2 ticker all night. Or switch over at 10:17, catch the weather and switch back to cable. Or do nothing. News directors also have a choice to make: Throw out all the satellite-fed ready-made packages and B-roll their viewers have seen already, stop trying to be the "newscast of record," wasting valuable minutes on national and world news, dump the segments cable can do (and do better) and instead put the "local" back into local news, with more enterprise reporting, more features, more investigative. Or do nothing. After all, your market isn't my market. And maybe the November sweep results will prove me wrong.

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    Articles for the week of June 14, 1999

    DIVX is dead! Long live DVD!

    TV Barn reader Courtney Haden writes, "I was delighted to observe the passing of the worst idea in the history of bad TV ideas: the DIVX format. I know you've got cable to cover this week, but when you return from Bigshouldersville, perhaps a rumination on the limits of the cynicism of the disseminators of video would be interesting." That the DIVX format was one retailer's attempt to impose a proprietary standard on the entire video industry is made clear by the fact that the chairman of Digital Video Express, LP, the company responsible for DIVX, was also the chairman of Circuit City. "The majority of customers purchasing DVD players in Circuit City stores have selected players that include the Divx option," he said in a statement posted to the DIVX website. "Unfortunately, we have been unable to obtain adequate support from studios and other retailers. Despite the significant consumer enthusiasm, we cannot create a viable business without support in these essential areas." Nice try, Mr. Sour Grapes, but it was word of mouth -- not some conspiracy of disinterest by other retailers -- that killed DIVX. Friends of mine made it a crusade to warn others against falling for the DIVX pitch. Of course, the fact that one retailer stood to gain the most from this proprietary format's growth did not exactly endear DIVX to the rest of the sales community. (And whatever possessed Circuit City to think it would ever be otherwise?) All of this is a triumph for DVD, a format that has been championed by consumers and critics (most recently a huge piece on the cover of the Washington Post Style section by Tom Shales).

    Cable '99: Reports from the floor

    This week, TV Barn will look a little more static than usual -- but only on the surface. I'll be in Chicago attending the National Cable Television Association confab, and I'll be filing Barnhart's Notebook entries online every day. But I'm trying to keep things simple while on the road, and so for the most part will update the ancillary pages, not this home page. Same goes with our columnists: Skip to the static links below to read Greg's column on Monday, Zippy's on Tuesday and Andy's ... well, Andy's will be there when it is there, and as always it'll be worth the wait. And the Picks to Click will be on another page this week, too. Read Barnhart's Notebook from Cable '99

    Putting a new face on Headline News

    I know, the anticipation has been killing you, but yes, at long last, CNN Headline News has gotten a facelift. But probably the more interesting news is that Headline News, after quietly doing its job for 17 years, is now kicking up some dust with an offbeat promotional campaign and a tinkered-with news format aimed at younger viewers who like to channel surf. In this story that appeared in Tuesday's Kansas City Star, I explain the change. Read the story

    Paying for laughs, playing for keeps

    Comedy Central is unveiling its new four-night-a-week block of original programming this week. It's the most ambitious in the network's history, and not just because it features out-there fare like "The Man Show," which celebrates such alleged Guy Traditions as farting, ogling scantily-clad women and pleasuring oneself in front of the family pet. It's also because Comedy Central is spending more money this season on original programs -- $100 million -- than at any time in its history. (I doubt it spent a tenth of that four years ago, when its roster of original shows numbered just three: "Dr. Katz," "MST3K" and "Politically Incorrect," which was heading to ABC.) And the network plans to spend even more next year. But when you've got FX and dozens of other cable competitors breathing down your neck, and your former rocket of a show, "South Park," has returned to Earth, you've only got two choices: roll the dice or get out. In this profile that appeared in Saturday's Kansas City Star, I visit the set of the "Upright Citizens Brigade" and take a look at Comedy Central's bold new season. Read the story

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    Articles for the week of June 21, 1999

    I stream, you stream, we'll all stream!

    Call me a geek, call me slow to realize the obvious, but this cable modem of mine is way cool! More than that, it's helped me to see -- finally -- the next generation of video. For the past four weeks I've been beta-testing Time Warner Cable's Road Runner service. By summer's end they hope to have several thousand of these babies in people's homes (there are 207,000 homes in Kansas City with upgraded cable). At $40 for the first account, $10 each additional, it's not cheap. But once you enter Fat Pipe City and start downloading 40-megabyte files in, like, two minutes, you'll realize it was worth every penny. Last week the first commercial movie theater in the U.S. showed a film on digital disk -- no celluloid involved. Well, imagine watching TV on your desktop, delivered over the Net and large enough to fill a 15-inch display, without a wire or antenna. Yeah, people have talked about this for years. And at the big cable convention last week, video-on-demand was all anybody could talk about. Small wonder why. We've had audio-on-demand on the Net since 1995. But video has been harder. Even 56K modem connections can get slowed down, and seemingly spend more time buffering than playing. But now, with throughputs routinely exceeding 100 kilobytes per second -- about 30 times what I averaged on my phone-line modem -- digitally-delivered TV is a complete possibility. Time Warner Cable is just one of several operators planning to fan out with cable modems in the next year. Soon millions and millions of ordinary consumers are going to have the means to watch video on demand from their desktops. And what will they watch? Whatever they can. Case in point. My wife mentioned how sorry she was she had missed the Franklin Pierce installment of C-SPAN's "American Presidents" series. No problem, I said, and downstairs we trundled to the basement, where we called up the "American Presidents" website, went to the Pierce page, and clicked on the "Watch" links. There it was: more than three hours of streaming video that passed, with hardly a burp, into our homes. Video on demand. Where now from here? Technologically, compression techniques should continue to improve so that more video data can be transferred faster, allowing the picture size to expand and the number of frames per second to approach that eye-can't-tell range of 24 to 30. Content-wise, well, that's a good question. I would hope that every cable programmer with networks that aren't being widely distributed would consider simulcasting them on the Internet. MTV2, aka M2, is available free of charge to anyone with a C-band satellite dish. Well, if they're so willing to share it with dishheads, they would certainly want cable modemheads to check it out too, right? Apparently not: MTV has thrown in its lot instead with Intel's proprietary Intercast technology. Intercast, which I saw demonstrated by our local PBS station, simulcasts a rich stream of data with a digital TV broadcast. Nice concept, but it assumes you receive the video signal already. Which in 98% of the country simply ain't true. Of course, many cable channels that you can't get right now on analog cable will finally come available thanks to yet another service of your cable company: digital cable. Time Warner's Pegasus service, which will also be offered to the masses this year, will offer a score or more of barely-known channels like BET on Jazz, Ovation, Speedvision, Sundance and Game Show Network to much wider audiences. I hope, however, that cable programmers don't make the mistake of assuming digital cable is their long-run savior. Might not be. Might be the cable modem. It certainly is in our home.

    DTV: Please stand by

    Digital broadcast TV still has a long ways to go. Very few sets are being sold, very few stations have begun to broadcast in digital, and some broadcasters are grumbling that 2006 is too soon to expect 90 percent of the country to buy into digital. But those brave few with digital-ready TV sets are making the most of them, as I reported recently in the Kansas City Star. Read the story

    Reader mail

    At the website this week I asked readers to weigh in on the sudden demise of the DIVX format, which was supposed to rival DVD, at least in the home-video-rental market. John Schneider writes, "My experience with DIVX is probably like most others -- standing around listening to a truckload of b.s. from Circuit City DIVX hucksters while I'm pointing to the non-DIVX player I wanted to buy. Just as in car sales, the employees were obviously well-coached on how to sell their product, wielding half-truths on poor unsuspecting customers who came in wanting one thing and walked away with something different. What worried me most is that it seemed to be working -- whether or not people believed in the DIVX concept or not, they would buy the DIVX compatible player because it usually came at about the same price. I can only imagine how much pressure the greedy Circuit City executives were putting on other retailers saying, 'See, we've sold umpteen million of these DIVX players -- it's obvious our customers really want this format.' The real truth is that many of those customers were hedging their bets, worried that if they didn't they would have a worthless DVD-only player stacked in the closet on top of their old Beta machine." Dave Schleier writes, "I might be the only one on the planet, but I have to be honest, I loved the DIVX concept. I mean, to purchase the disc for $4.49, and know that I could watch the film at any time, and not have to return a tape to Blockbuster -- that was well worth the 58 cents additional over the price of a rental. I always thought that having to get in the car to return a tape was a complete waste of time and energy. Mind you, I own a number of DVDs, but for a film that would be a one-time only disposal of two hours of spare time, what better format than a disposable disc? I for one will lament the passing of DIVX, and will be picking up a few clearance discs ($1.99 at Circuit City) as the DIVX discs will work until 6/30/01." Aw, Dave, you're too nice a guy. In order to get heard in this mad, mad world of ours, you have to yell and use military analogies, like reader Stephen P. Osvath does in this letter: "There is a war going on in corporate America right now over the 'pay-per-use' model of consumer products and the 'personal ownership' model of consumer products. The resounding failure of DIVX is a clear signal to corporate America that consumers prefer to pay for products once and only once. In the case of home video, the right to build your own home video library was at stake. A dark future of 'rentals only' could very clearly be seen on the horizon. Pay-per-use is a 'slippery slope' that will not stop at DVD. If DIVX was successful, it would have paved the way for pay-per-use audio CDs, pay-per-use video games, pay-per-use computer program usage, etc." Exhale ... inhale ... "Unlike VHS or DVD," continues Stephen, "DIVX was a 'pay-per-use' model at odds with the 'personal ownership' model. When a VHS or DVD movie is released, it can be rented or purchased. When a DIVX movie comes out, it is often in lieu of a DVD release. If the DIVX model was successful, not a single decent movie would have ever again been available for purchase -- since the studios had so much more to gain financially from the DIVX format. This was already happening with Disney and Fox, who were adopting a 'wait and see' attitude about DVD vs. DIVX, and withholding their best releases from DVD (often releasing them on DIVX first). June 16, 1999 was a day that will be long remembered as a triumph for consumers, not a failure for Circuit City." Cue the music ... Gil Belles weighs in on this week's fancy on-screen changes at CNN Headline News. He writes, "Each of the four traditional segments has gradually shrunk. They've thrown in a minute of weather (with 24 hour weather channel right next door), cut 'Dollars and Sense' by throwing in 'Top Stories,' reduced all segments with blatant ads called 'Allergy Report,' 'Pollen Report,' etc., all generic bland ads for pills and most blatantly, they've stretched the 'Back in Two Minutes' to 2:15, then 2:30, now three minutes. We all have digital clocks on our TVs. How stupid do they think we are? And lately -- this is a big turn off -- they put loops in the can and repeat them instead of live anchors. I've seen Chuck Roberts deliver the exact same story back to back because the technician screwed up. I've heard him promote a story in the next segment that never appeared (different loop aired). I've seen his face freeze, elongate, or go wacky when the tape slid in the machine. It is so obvious when they play a stale loop after the story has changed. And the automated voice for a stock market report -- where did the professional business reporters go? All of these spell Dull, Boring, Insulting changes. The new sets and graphics will not solve the problems." Allyce King was not exactly impressed by my description of Comedy Central's new programs last week. "'Ambitious'? 'Out-there'? I'd describe such frat boy fare as 'pointless' and 'nowhere.' How wise is it for the networks to purposely alienate female viewers? Do they think only men have money to spend? Why should women support advertisers that don't know the difference between crass and clever programming?" Brad Harvey writes, "I am one of those folks that's going to lose the DirecTV network feeds at the end of the month and yes I could (and will) put up a rooftop antenna, but my beef is not with losing the digital quality so much as it is with the loss of both east and west coast prime times. Why don't the broadcast networks get a clue and replay the prime-time shows overnight? I know that NBC airs old 'Tonight Shows' in the wee hours, but the whole block of prime time programming could be repeated from 2 to 5 a.m. at little cost to the nets and with great benefits to the viewers. People who work evenings would have something decent to watch when they got home and would not be forced to make a decision between two quality programs to record while they're gone. If you watch a prime-time program and afterwards wished you had recorded it, just do it overnight." The networks are too late, Brad -- soon ReplayTV and TiVo will be priced to sell and when they are, people will be watching all the TV they want, when they want. And they'll even be able to skip over the ads with the press of a button. Then there's this letter from Jeanita Ives: "I didn't quite get the comment about Amway as an analogy to the TV gathering. It seemed like a negative comment about a debt free business that grosses over $6 billion a year and is about to launch the largest e-commerce web site on the net in Sept. When is the last time you checked on what the company was doing? It is not just selling soap now...You do know that Sears and Roebuck started with watches, IBM with pots and pans and 7-11 with ice...so we all change. Anyway, if you haven't heard about Quixtar and would like to learn how it will work, call us." Well, it's nice to see one thing hasn't changed about Amway -- the unsettling zealousness of its sales force. '

    Cable goes digital _ but will you want to change the channel?

    In the next few months, millions of cable TV viewers across the country -- including most of the Kansas City market -- will finally begin to reap the firstfruits of a long-awaited harvest. Last week, at its annual national convention, the cable industry threw itself a party (or ten) to celebrate the past year, the most successful in its history. In a report that appears in Tuesday's Kansas City Star, I look forward to the coming year and what it holds for viewers in my market. But if you're served by any of the leading cable operators -- Time Warner Cable, AT&T (formerly TCI), Comcast, Adelphia -- chances are good these changes are headed your way too, and soon. Read the story

    You call this "original" programming?

    CHICAGO -- We've all heard that imitation is the sincerest form of television. Yet if you were to ask any cable programming executive what it takes to get an MSO's attention these days, you'd be told it takes an idea that's fresh. Original. Innovative. So why, when I walked the floor of the national cable show last week, did I see the same concepts cropping up again and again? Why, for example, is Fox doing a health channel? I thought Discovery was doing that one. And why WeatherPlus? Sure, it may be "the first totally new cable weather channel in nearly 20 years," but there hasn't been an outcry from my readers for more TV weather coverage. (Mostly I hear their cries when one of the four stations in our market with Doppler radar unleashes a new set of promos.) Earlier in the week I heard John Hendricks telling a roomful of fellow muckety-mucks that he didn't think analog was dead. A great new channel concept could still make it onto analog, said Hendricks, but it would have to be "something no one has thought of before." Well, forget that. At a time when the cable industry is going through the biggest technological change in its history, with seemingly every other booth at Cable '99 hawking digital set-top this and IP telephony that, the programming side is going in the other direction, playing it safe, repurposing the same niches that have been served by cable for years. The digital revolution is creating a vast frontier of bandwidth, ripe for homesteading. And what are the big cable programmers doing? Roaring out in their 18-wheelers and throwing up prefabricated homes. For 15 years the cable world got by with one women's channel. Now suddenly we've got three, including the as-yet-unnamed car crash between Turner, Time and Conde Nast. A press release promises "the new service will further a sense of community among women." If this is code for "no more movies with titles like 'He Betrayed Me'," then I'm all for it. But I still don't get why ABC and Sony are both launching 24-hour soap-opera networks. Sony says its new soap net "will take advantage of the success of Game Show Network." Careful, guys -- are you sure you want to raise our hopes *that high*? And am I the only one who sees a Comedy Central-like shotgun marriage in their future? And what few well-executed concepts there were -- like Trio, which wants to bring some of my favorite Canadian series south of the border -- seem destined to fight an uphill battle against other undersubscribed channels like Sundance and the born-again Odyssey. And that's just on the network side. On the programming side cable seems hopelessly cluttered with shows that look and feel the same. Even The Nashville Network has a "Biography" knockoff. The Food Network, eager to raise its profile, just signed a deal with Martha Stewart, who is not exactly lacking for exposure on TV. And then there's this summer's weirdest case of idea-copping involving "The Man Show," which began airing on Comedy Central last week. The brainchild of cable stars Jimmy Kimmel (who recently shared an Emmy for best game show host on "Win Ben Stein's Money") and Adam Carolla (MTV's "Loveline") and veteran talk show producer Daniel Kellison, "The Man Show" presents an "unapologetic" view of masculinity through comedy bits. Last year "The Man Show" was considered by ABC and, although it didn't make the final cut, its pilot tape apparently made the rounds in L.A., because there are elements of it in two other new cable shows. One is USA's "Happy Hour," starring the Zappa brothers (although I'm still deciding whether "Happy Hour" isn't just "Sabado Gigante" in English). The other is FX's "The X Show," which has four male hosts offering "stuff guys want to know about" in a comedic format, just like "The Man Show." Adding insult to injury, FX put the show on the air two weeks before "The Man's Show's" debut -- and rented the Hollywood Center Studios lot adjacent to the one where "The Man Show" is taped. "This goddam thing is in our *building*," says Kimmel. "I mean, we have to cover up our idea boards and stuff like that. You wouldn't believe what a rip it is." Actually, it's not hard to believe at all, because we've been down this road before. In fact, we're really not that far from where we were four years ago with cable. The difference is that instead of spending tens of millions to acquire similar-looking product, networks are now spending hundreds of millions to make similar-looking "original" product. We're still living on what Randall Rothenberg once called "The Planet of the Apers" -- only the property values have gone up. Part of that, I realize, is branding strategy. It makes a lot of sense to grow channels and make them all resemble and complement each other. And I appreciate the competitive pressures that are fueling the explosion of networks. After all, if you don't have a suite of channels ready to go up on the digital bird tomorrow, someone else will be happy to take your place in line. I just hope that, after all the consolidating and upgrading and set-top-boxing is done, that cable programmers can get back to the task of creating niche and subniche ideas we really haven't seen before. And just as important, promoting the good ideas already out there -- BET on Jazz, Ovation and Independent Film Channel to name three -- that languish in low-carriage purgatory.

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    This page last updated 27-Jun-99 7:14 PM

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    Articles for the week of June 28, 1999

    All we are saying...

    ...is give the V-chip a chance. That's what proponents are saying as the V-chip era formally begins today. July 1 was the deadline the FCC set for TV manufacturers to begin installing V-chips in half the new sets they make. They actually have till the end of the year to meet that deadline; by Sept. 1, 2000, every new TV sold in America will have the $3 part inside. And then what? No one knows. Certainly the proponents of the V-chip -- besides Al Gore, that would include various non-profits such as the Center for Media Education -- aren't going to be able to spend millions to raise brand awareness, the way Intel (dwingggg! dah-dink-a-ding) does with its chips. My sense is that an educational campaign will be needed just to get parents to understand that (a) the "hardware" of the V-chip works with the "software" of the on-screen TV ratings like "TV-14" and that (b) the V-chip is not as tricky to program as the VCR. Cable has indicated its support of the V-chip and TV ratings; in fact, HBO and Showtime have their own set of supplementary ratings that tell parents exactly what they can expect from any program (mild violence, graphic violence, brief nudity, strong sexual content, etc.). And many set-top boxes supplied by cable companies already have their own form of parental controls. So in many homes there will be a choice. Satellite-TV services also come with filters. In some cases, parental controls have been part of satellite and cable's marketing pitch. No one has really seen the V-chip in action by large numbers of ordinary Americans; until we do we're not going to have much of an idea of its effectiveness. We know parents are concerned enough about what their kids see on TV; we don't know if that concern extends to putting a clamp on what for three generations has been our culture's unrestricted access to TV. In many quarters the V-chip is being treated like an alien invader (how would you like it if someone placed a chip just beneath your epidermis?). It is a hostile force until proven otherwise. But I'm with the sympathizers. Let's see how it flies before declaring it the bane of creative people everywhere. Let's see if it really does harsh the mellow of TV's pot-stirrers like Trey Parker and Matt Stone, whose "South Park" movie imagines the V-chip as a body-jolting form of behavior modification. Actually, "South Park," which is largely watched in group settings and often in dorms, is probably immune from content-blocking technology. It's the mundane, unimaginative violence of USA Network and syndicated action programs that would be wiped away by the V-chip, to no one's regret. Were this to happen in 10 to 15 million households, industry experts tell me it would rock the economic assumptions underlying commercial TV. Widespread V-chip acceptance would almost certainly force the content kings to rethink the kind of shows they put on the air. If that frightens you, it shouldn't, not any more than the notion of an industry beholden to a single national ratings service. After years of broadcasters telling government to loosen the reins and "let the market decide," the V-chip represents one way of taking that free-enterprise logic to the next level. And the V-chip itself must weather the test of the marketplace; for if parents fail to put it to use, it will be an invisible relic, a useless government-imposed solder that did nothing but give a certain presidential candidate something to talk about.

    He's back! About time, too!

    Yes, NBC has re-acquired the services of Marv Albert and the toupee of his choice. No, NBC has not admitted how ridiculous it was to burn its bridges with Albert after his conviction on a sex charge stemming from kinky sex between two formerly consenting adults. No, the network is not yet willing to admit it erred in giving Bob Costas the job as its lead play-by-play announcer on NBA games. Yes, NBC will change its mind and return Marv to his rightful place in the, uh, pecking order. But it probably won't come soon enough for many fans. The news, announced Tuesday, came after reports that Fox was about to hire Albert for its NFL broadcasts. But his return to NBC comes with a catch: Marv won't be the No. 1 announcer for NBA games. He won't call next year's finals. Why? I have no idea. Is it because he lacks seniority? Since when was that a measure of a sportscaster? The Cubs have Chip Caray and he's, what, 19? Is it because NBC thinks its choice of finals announcer won't affect viewership, particularly in a less-than-thrilling championship round? Because if the network execs really think that, they should've taken the elevator down from their upper-level offices at 30 Rockefeller Plaza during this year's finals and listened to the fans on the street griping about Costas. Let's face it. Whatever Marvelous did in his private life with his longtime partner-slash-antagonist, should not have resulted in a two-year exile from NBC. The situation, however sordid, was too messy for such unequivocal judgment as NBC passed. Albert's other employer, the MSG Network, rehired him months after he had handed in his resignation. Even NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol was pining for Albert's return almost as soon as the network let him go. So why now drag matters out further? Why make Marv No. 2 when everybody knows -- and hell, Costas in his heart of hearts must know -- he should be No. 1? Everybody connected with this case has said repeatedly that it was an unfortunate situation and it was time to move on. But NBC's not moving on. It's instituting an arbitrary and unnecessary added punishment on Marv for a crime for which he's already done penance (if not actual jail time). But maybe, just maybe, NBC is toying with us. Maybe we're seeing the Latrell Sprewell rehabilitation all over again. Sure. Now it's much clearer. You bring Marv back, have him come off the bench, call 15 regular-season games, have him do playoff duties. Then, aha! NBC notices its ratings are headed for yet another low, breaking the record held by the scintillating '75 Warriors-Bullets final. Quick! Who can come out of nowhere and bring the fans back? Who can be the marquee attraction, the man who -- for one shining moment -- is almost as big as the game itself? Can you say Yesss! And it counts!

    Reader mail

    Nicole Ellis was intrigued to learn about the premise of Comedy Central's new game show "Vs." She writes, "I really enjoyed this premise when it first appeared on the HA! Network in 1990 as the game show 'Clash.' Back then I got to watch vegetarians vs. butchers or Deadheads vs. PTA members. I was also able to enjoy one of the first anti-game show hosts, Billy Kimball (now with 'Late Late Show'), who did not make a great effort to be nice to the contestants and would occasionally mock them. Thankfully, the questions on 'Clash' were more obscure than those currently appearing on 'Vs.' Perhaps that is where these two shows differ?" Paul Murray writes, "Your article about the duplication of cable channels has cleared up one thing: Instead of the much-predicted 500-channel television universe, we're going to end up with five 100-channel universes (five sets of what we have now, more or less). That sounds about right for a media world dominated by six conglomerates." Steve Byrd asks: "As great as Jay, Dave and Conan are, they seem to treat the musical acts that appear on their shows rather inconsistently.Ê They get to sing, sure, but oftentimes they don't get interviewed.ÊI remember Dick Clark on 'American Bandstand.'Ê Though the acts that appeared on his show lip-synched, at least they got interviewed by Dick. With all the money the late-night shows waste on the details involved in staging and rehearsing a musical guest, only to not interview them, it would be cheaper for those shows to air a pre-produced music video.ÊMusical acts have something to say, too, you know." Tom Larkin writes, "In reference to the announcement of Florence Henderson being tapped to co-host 'Later Today' -- what year is it? And what's next? Gavin MacLeod joining '60 Minutes II'?" And Michael Jones writes, "Your articles are making me painfully aware that the Jones' household is technologically backward. I'm probably going to have to schedule a family trip to a Third World country, or Russia, in an attempt to restore our self-esteem. (P.S. I'm getting my wife one of those push-button phones for her birthday.)"

    Back to his roots

    A&E's Bill Kurtis has his dream job -- and in Kansas, his dream home
    Bill Kurtis on his ranch near Sedan, Kan. (Photo: Kansas City Star/Talis Bergmanis) CHICAGO -- Just a few years ago, Bill Kurtis seemed ready to do a slow fade from television. From his first job at WIBW in Topeka, where he spent one memorable night in 1966 covering a tornado, Kurtis had won respect for his no-nonsense style and fame for his screen presence and distinctive voice. In the 1980's he was one of CBS's best-known personalities. But after 30 years, Kurtis knew it was time to move on. He scaled down his on-air duties. He started traveling more. And he devoted more time to a small business he was keeping on the side. The business: making documentaries for cable. Talk about great timing. Just as Kurtis's network career was winding down, cable TV was taking off. And fueling that rocket was original, nonfiction programming, the kind Kurtis would learn to crank out in volume. Beginning with a single documentary he peddled to the A&E network 10 years ago, Kurtis has made himself the network's signature player in the genre. His production company now supplies A&E with 12-16 hours a year of documentaries. Kurtis also began narrating other producers' work for A&E. From the blood-and-guts of "American Justice" to the UFO weirdness of "The Unexplained," Kurtis' sing-songy baritone can be heard night and day on A&E, and together both network and anchor have prospered. At 9 p.m. tonight, when A&E relaunches its nightly documentary hour under a single title -- Kurtis's "Investigative Reports" -- it will complete an odyssey his peers at CBS once would have found unthinkable. The old-school broadcaster has emerged as one of cable's brand names. Did he ever imagine it would turn out this way? "I had no idea," he says with a laugh. "Either Kansas or cable." Oh yes, Kansas. Although he is a native son of Independence in southeastern Kansas, Kurtis spent nearly all his adult life avoiding his home state. Then three years ago he bought a 7,000-acre ranch. It's become his No. 1 travel destination. As they say on the news, we'll have that story in a few minutes.<

    "Nice voice, but..."

    Three floors down from the offices of Kurtis Productions, there resides a million-dollar "virtual set." On first sight it appears to be little more than one giant blue panel leaning against a blue floor. But a nearby TV monitor shows an entirely different picture. Thanks to powerful Silicon Graphics computers, a realistic-looking facade is imposed behind and around Kurtis as he walks and talks around the set. There are hand railings, spinning kiosks and picture-in-picture video. Incredibly, they are kept in perfect perspective no matter how or where the camera moves. "A totally synthetic view that can be photorealistic," as Mike Fayette, the president of Post Effects, which built the set, describes it. Every year on this set -- one of a handful that exist in the Midwest -- Kurtis supplies "wraps" (beginnings and endings) to more than 120 new hours of A&E programming. That's the sexy side of documentary work. Here's the other side: a 4-foot-square booth, lined top to bottom with eggshell foam, with a microphone and a 2-inch TV screen on a table. In this stifling closet down the hall from his office, Kurtis logs four hours at a time reading narration. He calls it his "secret weapon," because he matches his audio to the finished video as it rolls on the screen. While showing off the room, Kurtis can't help getting in a little dig at PBS, the network that treated him like just another producer. "A lot of PBS documentaries, they have that disembodied feel to them," he says. "I mean, nice voice, but ..." Yes, nice voice, but Kurtis didn't get into this line of work just because he had great pipes. He longed to be a documentary producer, a noble profession the networks used to support before news became a bottom-line-driven business. Kurtis built his reputation in the 1970s and '80s at WBBM, the CBS-owned station in Chicago. In 1982, he landed a network job alongside Diane Sawyer at the "CBS Morning News" in New York. Three years later, with the show (then as now) still mired in third place and Sawyer long gone -- replaced by the laughable Phyllis George -- Kurtis returned to WBBM. But local news would never be the same. His longtime co-anchor soon went to a rival station, and Kurtis spent his final years reading trashy tabloid news alongside younger talent he barely knew. P.J. Bednarski, the former TV critic at the Chicago Sun-Times, says, "It was like seeing a great baseball player on a very bad team." In his contract, however, Kurtis had gotten CBS to agree to finance five episodes of a series he named "The New Explorers." "I won't claim to be as pres-ci-ent as one might," says Kurtis in that familiar clipped diction he uses both on-camera and off. "I was following what I wanted to do. I didn't even know what I was doing -- how much it was going to cost. I think I did only two a year." CBS still didn't know what to do with a documentary, but the local PBS station did. Soon Kurtis had moved "The New Explorers" over to public TV. There, he says, "I felt like a salesman. I hadn't spent any time with a sales department or salesman in 25 years and suddenly I was pitching corporations 50 percent of the time at PBS." "The New Explorers" was funded for seven years, but when two of his major sponsors abandoned him, PBS wasn't able to help Kurtis get the funding he needed. By then, however, a third player was on the scene. Years ago, Kurtis had sold a special to A&E, a cable network better known for its puffy celebrity bios than for tough, topical news programs. Once it saw what Kurtis could do, the network bought more specials from him and in 1991 launched "Investigative Reports," his own A&E series. "Bill's a lawyer, he's a great producer, he's been around the world, he's covered every type of story," says Michael Cascio, who has overseen Kurtis' work for A&E since 1990. "He's got a broad base of knowledge. That makes him a perfect anchor." Just as important, Kurtis was a proven draw, attracting similar numbers of 25-to-54-year-old viewers as the network's flagship, "Biography." So Kurtis brought "The New Explorers" to cable, the virtual set was built and A&E become the "Biography and Bill" network. "Bill's not an overnight sensation for us," says Cascio. "This is a long-term plan for us. And it's a dream for Bill and for me to do a single-subject hour documentary every night."

    Back to Kansas

    There's another dream Kurtis has nurtured, but only for about four years. It materialized when he was back in Kansas visiting his parents. "I was dutifully driving them around, and we were about 40 miles west of my hometown of Independence and I said, 'What's this?' " Informed that he was looking at the Flint Hills, Kurtis exclaimed, "This is like Africa!" By coincidence, a cousin approached him with the idea of going in on a grass-fed cattle ranch in neighboring Chautauqua county, near Sedan. Suddenly smitten, Kurtis said yes. The two men now raise 300 head of cattle for the Tallgrass Prairie Producers Co-operative of Elmsdale, Kan., which sells their beef to natural food stores. "Bill's been a wonderful asset for us," says Annie Wilson, the co-op's business manager, who says Kurtis has offered advice on breaking into urban markets (like Kansas City, where Tallgrass beef isn't yet available). And now his zeal has spread to increasing tourism in southeastern Kansas. A couple of weeks ago, he had the Sedan Chamber of Commerce over to the ranch for a barbecue and to talk about luring more city folk to their area. He's trying to buy up the land surrounding the site of Laura Ingalls Wilder's "little house on the prairie." "It's become a kind of spir-i-tu-al thing for me as I go back to the land," Kurtis says. Hard to believe that Kurtis is only now going back to Kansas, which served him so well at the dawn of his broadcast career. The legend is this: Kurtis worked at WIBW while putting himself through college at the University of Kansas and law school at Washburn University. One hot June afternoon in 1966, he was reading the 6 o'clock news when a bulletin was handed to him: High winds coming in from Manhattan. His news director had decamped for the weekend, so Kurtis stayed after the newscast as a precaution. During the 7 p.m. station break, he went on the air to read a weather advisory. As he did, recalls Kurtis, "the cameraman yells from off-camera, `Ed Rutherford' -- who is our other cameraman -- `is at Burnett's Mound, and there's a tornado.' Headed. For the city." Kurtis stayed on the air. "The next bulletin that came 30 seconds later was: The Huntington apartments have just been wiped out." The Huntington was on the southwest edge of Topeka and heading for the city center via the Washburn campus, where his wife and child were. Kurtis responded viscerally. He faced the camera and blurted out, "For God's sake, take cover!" Kurtis stayed at his post for the next 24 hours while the station's reporters roamed the city, reporting damage. In those days, WIBW's closest competitors were 60 miles away in Kansas City, so it had the tornado to itself. And because the Stauffer family also owned WIBW radio, the TV's audio was simulcast throughout the state, connecting Kurtis to everyone affected by one of the most destructive storms in Kansas history. Today, in a glass case behind the receptionist at the WIBW studios, you can still see the black-and-white photograph of Kurtis at the anchor desk in a white-sleeved shirt, young enough to pass for a teenager, with his famous expectoration printed in big letters next to his head. "Everybody laughs at it now, but I say hell, it got the job done," says Kurtis. In a way, Kurtis sees his move to cable as a return to the style of broadcasting he did in Topeka, a form of narrowcasting, really, except now to a national audience. "It's almost like getting back to that local station for me, because all Ihave to do is serve my viewers," says Kurtis. And who wouldn't want to have A&E's viewers? "They're highly educated. They make a lot of money. They obviously like contemporary documentaries. They're waiting to hear from us." Bill Kurtis smiles and adds, "So I've come full circle." This story also appeared in Monday's Kansas City Star. ALSO: Tallgrass Beef website

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    This page last updated 17-Jul-99 11:01 AM

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    Articles for the week of July 5, 1999

    The next big idea:
    Behind the Oscars


    Because there should be more to Oscars coverage "behind the scenes" than that pitiful pre-show with Geena Davis (pictured). Last fall, in a conversation with the late Gene Siskel, I pitched him an idea I thought would make for great TV: continuous live backstage coverage of the Academy Awards. He liked it and told me to send him an e-mail, which I did. After Gene died, I forgot all about it. But then I read Kurt Andersen's new novel Turn of the Century and noticed Kurt had invented a cable network, E-squared, that basically extended my idea to a 24-hour-a-day channel. Coincidentally, Andersen and I both saw E! as the most logical source for such celebrity coverage. And now I read in this morning's wires the report that a behind-the-scenes documentary was made at the Oscars ... and that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has forbade it to be shown in the U.S. The Academy is being needlessly paranoid. Showing what happens backstage at the Oscars is the best thing that could happen to that four-hour yawnfest. And frankly, after this year's horrible pre-show with Geena Davis, the Academy owes the American people a better behind-the-scenes look at the Oscars. Here's how I envisioned such a program last year in my e-mail to Siskel: You're watching the Oscarcast on ABC. Actually, you started by watching Joan and Melissa Rivers fawning over the celebrities and their fashions for two hours on E! before the ceremonies. What happens to E! once the cameras roll from Pasadena? It shifts into repeats that no one in the target audience is watching anyway. Surely the channel's two big shareholders, Disney and cable giant Comcast, would prefer a little more audience on a Sunday night. Enter my great idea: using E! as a backchannel to capture some of the interesting (and not so interesting) activity backstage at the Oscars as it happens. The key here is to grab the younger viewers who are lukewarm about watching a 4-hour Oscarcast but might be enticed to tune in for a less formal brand extension. The M.O. is that you work the runway, just like Joan and Melissa do, but this runway begins at the edge of backstage. The award winners come offstage and, after meeting with the deadline press, are intercepted by the host. If a presenter is willing, then grab her/him while the winner is talking to deadliners. Whatever. Go with the flow. Have some anytime guests on standby -- people like the caterer, stage manager, joke writers like Bruce Vilanch, who are happy to explain the process. Grafx could be kept on-screen all night teasing people with what's going on onstage and encouraging them to tune to ABC right now ("Jackie Chan giving acceptance speech after winning Best Actor"). It will get viewers who are bored with the telecast's length and self-importance back into the flow. They'll be punching that "Last Channel" button on their remote, toggling between E! and ABC. At the end of the night, I predict Disney will see it had a larger overall audience share. And any juicy sound bites grabbed off the E!-cast will be a windfall in p.r. for the Mouse, and for Oscar. Remember, you read it here first.

    Reader mail

    Claudia Cauchon took exception with my editorial waxing NBC for not giving the newly-rehired Marv Albert the No. 1 announcer's spot on its NBA coverage: "When Marv Albert went on David Letterman shortly after his plea bargain he really p---ed me off. He came off as an arrogant b------. That's the impression that appearance made on me and it hasn't changed since, which is why I'm not surprised at NBC's reluctance to hire him with his baggage. I used to enjoy his appearances on Letterman. Now I won't even watch him if he is on. But maybe I don't understand because I'm a woman and I have a harder time to forgive him than a man. I understand sometimes you have to separate the man from the job but this is one time I can't." Mark Jeffries saw the recent letter about the similarities between new Comedy Central game show "Vs." and old Ha! game show "Clash." He writes, "A few years ago, I ran into an actor who had been a contestant on 'Clash.' He told me that the teams were not what they purported to be--that they just put contestants together and gave them names. Of course, it's not rigging, since the game itself isn't affected. I would more than assume that the teams on 'Vs.' are what they purport to be. The show probably doesn't have a big enough costume budget to give the teams the clothes and/or props that they wear or bring with them." T Fagan is even wilder about cable modems than I am. "Here in beautiful Akron, Ohio, I have had Road Runner since its inception (over two years) and have never once kvetched about the $40! The mere fact of no phone involvement is enough for the priceÊ of admission!" But Tom Larkin is less sanguine. "I read with interest your article on the cable companies offering digital service and was surprised that you didn't bring up the BellSouth Americast service that currently serves Orlando as well as five or six other cities and is being gradually rolled out across the nation. Americast uses a small 9-inch receiver that receives the digital signal. The receiver is not aimed at a satellite, but (in Orlando's case) to Americast's transmitter downtown. Unlike direct satellite we get no atmospheric interference or signal loss because we are getting it direct. The picture is perfect and we have 160 all-digital channels including the music offerings. "I currently have a split household. Two sets are Americast and the others still subscribe to Time Warner Cable (for MSNBC and TV Land, two offerings not offered by Americast because Time Warner has exclusivity on them). I've been hearing about this digital rumor for a couple of years now but still can't get a straight answer from Time Warner as to what 'digital TV' from them will actually be. I had numerous conversations with a number of reps from Time Warner who could never give me a straight answer on anything. Marketing did not return calls. The last rep I spoke to explained to me they would be offering digital tv by the end of the summer. However, not *all* channels would be digital, only some of the newer ones. This is a far cry from what is being promised as this great digital revolution. "Time Warner told me they don't consider BellSouth to be a competitor, but an awful lot of the rooftops around here are starting to remind me of when I was growing up back in the sixties where antennas grew out of every home. Time Warner is hiding quite a bit, being evasive and keeping their cards real close to their vest regarding all these latest revolutions. I'll believe it when I hit the Power On button on my remote and see it." Bob Claster writes, "In reply to your reader who wondered why music acts get short shrift on talk shows, the answer is simple.Ê Music is very polarizing.Ê No matter what type of music it is, it's a safe bet that half of the audience hates it.Ê This explains why Randy Newman was relegated to the slot *after* the girl who just graduated from the Citadel on Letterman a few weeks ago. Most music acts are guaranteed to cause a major portion of the audience to change the channel.ÊSad, but true." Matt Ackeret adds, "For quite a while when Jay started out doing 'The Tonight Show' full time, he would interview all of the musical guests (and they always played two songs, if I remember correctly). I don't mean to stereotype musical acts, but from that experience, it seemed like a lot of them *didn't* have anything to say. By the way, didn't Aaron talk about this topic (wasting time with musical guests in the chair) years ago in LATE SHOW NEWS?" I suppose I did, Matt, but what Internet pub would be complete without a frequently asked question? I shoulda figured Don Giller would know the answer to John Lavalie's question last week, whether the 90-minute versions of the very early "Saturday Night Lives" would ever air, since they didn't on Comedy Central. The answer is yes, on "NBC All Night," the network's overnight programming block that launched last year. "SNL's" from 1978 and 1980 have aired and doubtless more are planned, but no, we don't have a schedule yet ...

    Only in Canada

    Mike Bullard has the best TV show you can't watch Recently I voted in the semi-annual Electronic Media critics' poll of the best TV shows of the year. But now I'd like to take a few moments to introduce you to another show -- one that didn't have a chance of making EM's list.
    Mike Bullard If you live in a market near the Canadian border -- say Buffalo or Duluth -- then perhaps you've caught "Open Mike with Mike Bullard." The rest of you, sad to say, are missing out on the sharpest new late-night talk show to come along in years. NAFTA hasn't taken effect in the TV programming world. So while every godforsaken U.S. sitcom makes its way onto Canadian airwaves, we Yanks can only see "Open Mike" if we have access to CTV or cable's The Comedy Network. Both are Canadian networks with limited carriage in the States. It's our loss. "Open Mike," fronted by Mike Bullard, a veteran standup comedian from Mississauga, Ont., is the closest thing to live, unscripted, tightrope-walking TV our generation has seen. As was true of "The Jack Paar Show" and, to a lesser degree, David Letterman's show in its prime, Bullard's "Open Mike" has a mystical ability to pull comedy out of nothingness. It trades in the unrehearsed and the unexpected. In a tightly-wound post-Carson landscape, where all the guests are coached and all the laugh lines are canned, "Open Mike" stands out. It's low-budget, low-key, high-yield TV from the old school. And it has given the 42-year-old Bullard a midlife ascendancy not unlike that of Paar (who was 39 when he began doing the "Tonight Show"). A burly, unshaven comic whose entire act consists of interrogating members of his audience, Bullard is the uninvited guest who has made himself the life of the late-night party. "It's thrilling for me every night," says Bullard, who just wrapped his second season of "Open Mike" and is launching a month-long comedy tour in Halifax later this week. "I mean, I'm not crazy about the scripted stuff, but to go out and be able to impart topical stuff to Canadians, that alone I think is what makes the show fly for them." "Open Mike" is already the biggest home-grown late-night show in Canada's history and outdraws all the imported talkers except Letterman. "It's five jokes, a desk bit, and the rest is basically what Orin and I can come up with," says Bullard. Orin Isaacs is the leader of the show's funk-charged house band that sounds like it descended from Paul Shaffer's old ensemble at NBC. Like Jimmy Brogan, the longtime writer for "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," Bullard has no act. He simply goes out and starts chatting up his audience, riffing off their responses. It's all he's ever done since he started doing standup at the age of 30. (Bullard continued to hold a full-time job as an executive at Bell Canada his entire standup career. He quit just nine weeks before "Open Mike" launched.) "I had this woman in the audience once stand up and say, 'Is that all you do? Stand around and make up funny stuff as you go along?'" says Bullard. "She had paid 10 dollars to see someone make up stuff. Only in Canada." Bullard's sourpuss demeanor plays well among his countrymen ("Canadians love crabby," he says). During one "Open Mike" taping, Bullard was having a hard time with a woman audience member, so he ordered her to switch seats with another man a few rows back. They complied, nervously, and as the man sat in the woman's place, Bullard said to her boyfriend, "Now I want you to make a new life with this man." This exchange with TV star Michael Hogan (Canada's answer to Dennis Franz) is typical of the repartee on the show: Hogan (entering): "You're one funny guy! My stomach's sore, my cheeks are sore..." Bullard: "Well, see your doctor. I'm not that funny."
    Actress Carrie-Ann Moss clowns with Mike Bullard on "Open Mike." (Photo: CTV) Bullard has also picked up a few fans south of the border. Michael Moore considers him to be flat-out brilliant. Moore played tapes of "Open Mike" for the writers on his new show, "The Awful Truth," and recently compared Bullard to Jonathan Swift and the Monty Python players. Even so, being a TV star has not made him rich. Were it not for cable's secondary revenue stream, Bullard says the show almost certainly would go broke. This despite the fact that the production budget for a one-hour broadcast of "Open Mike" is $27,500 Canadian, a third of what a comparable show in the U.S. costs. "I cannot figure out why a show like this, given the ratings, doesn't make money," he says. "Only in Canada." He has just three writers on staff, including Al Magee, Bullard's boyhood pal and the show's co-creator. The first season of "Open Mike" was done out of Wayne Gretzky's sports bar in downtown Toronto, where Bullard was known to have a brew with his audience before the taping. Bullard doesn't want to leave his native land, as his brother Pat Bullard (late of "Love Connection") did. He recently signed with William Morris' TV syndication arm. Howard Lapides, the Bullards' Los Angeles-based manager, says, "We're looking at a way to marry the Canadian show to the United States." And it may not stop there. Bullard recently learned that every Tuesday night, a popular bar in Sweden has "Open Mike" night and pipes in his show via satellite. Japanese and Australian syndicators have expressed interest. Foreign co-productions are becoming commonplace, and one could ensure Bullard is doing a talk show out of Toronto for years to come. Which is exactly how he'd like it. "The funny thing is, I never tell them this, but the money's incidental to me," Bullard says. "I'm doing what I've wanted to do all my life." Dates for Mike Bullard's Canadian comedy tour

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