Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 929 days ago

Pawn in the U.S.A.

By James Poniewozik

  Next Sunday, History channel debuts Pawn Star$, its new reality show set in a Las Vegas pawn shop. What does selling one’s personal valuables have to do with history? Maybe because when historians write about The Great Depression of 2009, this will be one of the first things the textbooks will cite.   Actually, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 929 days ago

The Morning After: Againtourage

By James Poniewozik

  HBO’s Entourage returned last night. I’d put up a spoiler alert, but we’re talking about Entourage, so things progress at their own leisurely pace. How leisurely? Enough that Jay Leno is still hosting the Tonight Show. My Name Is Earl is still on the air, and a hit. Perhaps this was the result of [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 932 days ago

The Afternoon After: Big Brother, Still in the House

By James Poniewozik

  Last night saw the return of CBS’s Big Brother, which I confess I haven’t watched yet. But what interests me most about the show is simply that it’s still around. When it first began in 2000—the dawn of primetime reality TV—people like me thought it would either blow up huge like Survivor or flame [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 932 days ago

Tape of the Tail

By James Poniewozik

I’m better than this. I’m better than this, right? Sigh. Who am I kidding? I’m not better than this.  So a photo has been making the rounds appearing to show President Obama, along with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, checking out the posterior of a young woman at the G8 summit. After the photo graced the cover [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 932 days ago

There's a Party in Central Park's Tummy!

By James Poniewozik

Because TIME is a national magazine and the Web is worldwide, I try not to post much regional news here. But because Yo Gabba Gabba! is a personal obsession of mine (even though the Tuned In Jrs. rarely watch it now), I must tell any Tuned Inlanders in the New York area that DJ Lance [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+932 days ago

Dead Tree Alert II: State the Case

By James Poniewozik

Also in this week’s print TIME, I recommend the long-overdue complete series set of The State, which I worshipped on MTV when it started airing in the early ’90s. I had plans to expand on my brief Short List review for the blog. Ah, sweet foolish dreams! Other blog topics, screeners to screen, and print-magazine [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+932 days ago

Dead Tree Alert I: Michael and the Media

By James Poniewozik

  My Tuned In column in the print TIME this week is, unsurprisingly, about the media welter around Michael Jackson. It is, to be honest, basically an amalgamation of my two posts earlier this week about the news coverage of his death and about the memorial ceremony (which, among other things, responded to his media [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+News Media | 932 days ago

Would You Pay to Read the NYT Online?

By James Poniewozik

A couple of reports dribbling out indicate that the New York Times is serious about gearing up to charge people, in some way, for online access. Poynter got its hands on an NYT survey asking subscribers how willing they’d be to pay to read the paper online. Meanwhile, Britain’s Telegraph quotes an NYT exec saying [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+TV Ratings | 933 days ago

Dave & Conan: Who's #1? Depends Who Counts

By James Poniewozik

As Bill Carter reports at the New York Times, one side effect of Michael Jackson’s death has been a big jump in Nightline’s ratings, which seemed to come largely from Conan O’Brien. The night of Jackson’s memorial, The Tonight Show got about two million fewer viewers than Nightline, and a million less than Late Show [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 933 days ago

Corporate Press Release Theater: 16 Newbies Land on Runway

By James Poniewozik

  Like a miniskirt, a narrow tie, or some other fashion object that I am not actually hip enough to know whether it’s in or out, Project Runway is returning at long last August 20. Not to be outdone by its former corporate sibling Top Chef, which announced a return date yesterday, Runway announced the [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 933 days ago

The Morning After: TC, SYTYCD, AGT

By James Poniewozik

  For today’s Morning After, a look at the night in reality TV:  1. I’m saving Top Chef Masters to watch tonight. But because it was on, and because it featured Neil Patrick Harris—who will host the Emmys and should be on all television shows—feel free to discuss in the comments. 

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 933 days ago

Newspapers Saved, For Just Pennies A Day

By James Poniewozik

The irony is, this I would have paid 75 cents for:  (From Slate, via Romenesko.)

Tuned In
Tuned In+Remembrance | 933 days ago

He Had a First Name. It Was O-S-C-A-R.

By James Poniewozik

Oscar Mayer, the purveyor of meats who shared a name with the company he chaired, died Monday at age 95. It’s a little odd to feel nostalgia for the passing of a man who, I would guess, most of us did not know except for the name attached to his products. But Mayer’s company, and [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+934 days ago

How Do We Look?

By James Poniewozik

Tuned In’s design has changed, as you may have inferred from the fact that you are looking at it. Look around, kick the tires, and tell me what you think in the shiny new comments section. Loudly! Among the new features (I’m still discovering new ones myself): 

Tuned In
Tuned In+TV Ratings | 934 days ago

31 Million (and More) for MJ Memorial

By James Poniewozik

According to Nielsen, via The Live Feed, about 31 million people watched Michael Jackson’s memorial service on U.S. television. That compares with 35.1 million for Ronald Reagan in 2004 and 33.3 million for Princess Diana in 1997—but it’s also in an era of smaller audiences overall, not to mention Internet video, which presumably added millions to [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 934 days ago

Sacha Baron Cohen Is… Himself!

By James Poniewozik

On Late Show, David Letterman interviewed Sacha Baron Cohen, star of Brüno. What’s significant here is that he interviewed Baron Cohen, and not Brüno. In the past, as when he was promoting Borat and Da Ali G Show, Baron Cohen has preferred to be interviewed as his character. Some journalists don’t have a problem with [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 934 days ago

Luck, Be a Ladle: Top Chef Vegas Sets a Date

By James Poniewozik

If you follow the careers of celebrity chefs, or just like to gamble, you know that one of the surest steps in a successful career is opening a satellite restaurant in Las Vegas. So it’s only fitting that the next installment of Top Chef will take place in Sin City, and today Bravo announced a [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | 934 days ago

The Morning After: Syfydelity

By James Poniewozik

A lot of critics like myself have had our fun with Sci Fi channel’s changing its name to (the more trademark-defensible) Syfy, which kicked in yesterday. But in the long run, it doesn’t really matter. We’ll get used to it. We have a channel named Spike, for God’s sake. And do I really have a [...]