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We’re boring. That was the front-and-center message of CBS’ upfront pitch to advertisers, not just covertly but overtly: CBS Corporation chief Les Moonves actually used the term. “We’re not sexy,” he added to the advertisers assembled at Carnegie Hall Wednesday afternoon. But you could argue that’s a strong sales pitch in these …
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I’m told there were other things on TV besides American Idol last night; considering that Tuesday’s final performance show was the lowest-rated ever, there’s a good chance you even watched some of them. For those of you who didn’t, and would never, blow two hours and seven minutes waiting for the results of a pop-music contest, how did …
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Spoilers for last night’s American Idol finale after the jump:
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The channels of Turner Networks (disclosure: a division of Time Warner, which owns TIME) have been making the case loudly that advertisers should consider large cable networks (like them) equal to broadcast networks (like NBC) that have been getting smaller and smaller. TNT’s The Closer, for instance, might be only a modest hit on a …
When I was in Chicago last week for the opening of Renzo Piano’s new addition to the Art Institute I sat down with the Institute’s Director James Cuno to talk about a number of things, but in particular the controversy that broke out in April when Chicago Alderman Ed Burke, chairman of the city council finance committee, challenged …
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Tonight I will be liveblogging the American Idol finale with a special guest: Blake Lewis, runner-up of Idol’s season 6. He will be live at the finale in L.A. I will be on my couch in Brooklyn. I do not believe he will be beatboxing. If I get enough drinks in me, I just might.
The liveblog starts tonight. [Update: Blake starts …
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Every year, CBS introduces its schedule to reporters at a bacon-laden breakfast at their headquarters. Usually, you can count on the network’s chief, Les Moonves, to take entertaining potshots at the competition, especially NBC’s Jeff Zucker. This year, however, he disappointingly chose not to snark at NBC’s move to put Jay Leno on the …
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Fox has been promoting it and critics have been writing about it for what seems like years now, but last night the most important show in the history of broadcasting, Glee, finally debuted. You know I loved the pilot. What did you think?
I’ll be busy with upfronts business for the better part of the day, so feel free to use this …
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“I am the voice in the crowd that needs to be heard.” “I am a dreamer.” “I am a superstar in the making.” And I… am finally writing my last American Idol review of the season!
I kid Idol, but although this was overall not the most memorable batch of contestants, we ended up with an actual suspenseful finale, between two contestants …
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Say this for the Great Recession: it is prompting some creative new pitches at the upfronts. In a typical year, a network like ABC, which is not at the top of the ratings, would argue that it was still a good buy for advertisers because it had a god demographic. So ABC argued this year, but with a twist: buy ads on our network, they …
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NBC revealed its new 2009-10 shows a couple of weeks ago, but today the network announced when—at least for now—they’ll be running. Along with the return of Chuck, NBC is bringing back Law & Order to continue its marathon run. And between the Winter Olympics and The Jay Leno Show, fitting in its programming will involve a lot of …
I thought I’d offer a walking tour of Renzo Piano’s new addition to the Art Institute of Chicago, which they call the Modern Wing because it now houses much of the museum’s 20th and 21st century collections. All pictures here are by me, so don’t look for professional standards.
As I mentioned in the piece I wrote this week about …
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I mentioned earlier that NBC had picked up Chuck for 13 episodes this season, but NBC just issued its official announcement, which is worth a separate post simply for the way NBC was able to keep the show around. It really was all about the sandwiches! (Well, that and slashing the show’s production budget. Update: Or not! On a conference …
