Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1300 days ago

Estelle Getty, 1923-2008

By James Poniewozik

Estelle Getty, the Golden Girls’ machine-gun-mouthed Sophia, died this morning. I can’t pretend to ever have been an enormous fan of The Golden Girls, but you had to admire the dynamism with which she took over the show: she was a pint-sized tornado of kvetchy sarcasm. (You might have been surprised to find that she [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1301 days ago

Corporate Press Release Theater: Access Hollywood's Obama Bounce

By James Poniewozik

There’s been much talk, particularly with Barack Obama’s overseas roadtrip, about whether the media are paying an unfair amount of attention to the Democratic candidate compared with John McCain. (An argument the McCain campaign is aggressively pushing.) It’s a worthwhile question, but it’s also worth noting that there are motivations other than bias involved: namely, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1301 days ago

Jay, Jimmy, Conan and the Late-Night Shuffle

By James Poniewozik

NBC’s challenge: keep the new guy from becoming the bad guy. / NBC I’ve been linking to NBC’s various press-tour announcements about its late-night changes next year, but they add up to an interesting enough big-picture of NBC’s various gambles that they deserve their own post: * First, where is Jay Leno going, when and [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 1301 days ago

And Now for the McNews

By James Poniewozik

At least one chain of local TV stations has found a solution for the nobody-wants-to-pay-for-journalism-anymore conundrum: product placements on the local news. The Meredith Corporation has struck a deal that has placed cups of McDonald’s iced coffee on the anchor desks at its Las Vegas affiliate; McDeals are in place at several other affiliates as [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 1301 days ago

TCA Roundup: NBC Day

By James Poniewozik

* On the final day of sessions, America’s TV critics finally run out of TV networks, and Tim Goodman jumps for joy. * Tim Kring says that Heroes will only benefit from returning to the air after viewers have spent a long time watching “a lot of stuff on TV that wasn’t of the quality [...]