On Friday I lamented the overlap of Battlestar Galactica’s finale with the paradigm-shifting relaunch episode of Dollhouse. But it turns out that maybe a rising tide lifts all spaceships / human-personality-imprinting facilities. BSG did score a big sendoff, with its highest ratings in three years. But Dollhouse not only held fairly …
Television
CNBC: Through the Looking Glass?
Having recently written a column on the anti-Obamism of CNBC in the past couple of months, it’s worth noting that the network seems to be having something of a love-in for the President, his administration and their just-announced toxic-assets plan today.
Mind you, I’m not an expert on the markets or bank policy; I’m not going to judge …
Ratings: Sheldon Was Right
Another detail that last night’s Big Bang Theory got right was the overlap in the Venn diagram of Guys Who Own TiVos and Guys Who Watch Sci-Fi. This appears to be borne out in a bit of good ratings news for both Dollhouse and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (on which should-have-been-Echo Summer Glau appears). Reports James …
An Hourlong Nightly News. Probably Won't Happen. Should It?
Prominent media insiders–by which I mean “my editors”–are excited this morning over a brief passage in a New York Times article about the success of the NBC news division:
NBC’s surge in the evening has been strong enough for the news division president, Steve Capus, to suggest that NBC is positioned to be the first network to
…
TV Weekend: Re-Breaking Bad
The first season of Breaking Bad was truncated by the writers’ strike at seven episodes out of a planned ten, though this did not stop Bryan Cranston for winning an Emmy for his portrayal of Walter White, dying chem teacher …
Crash the Nielsens
In the current Lost thread, commenter archstanton68 goes off-topic to make an offer that deserves its own post (if only because I have little time to write posts myself today):
OT – I got a Nielsen diary in the mail the other day. anyone have any struggling shows for me to help out in the ratings?
Archstanton68 is only one diarist, but …
David Simon Goes Back on the Cops Beat
This is what happens when a pugnacious old police reporter finishes his TV show and has some time on his hands. David Simon, frustrated with the reporting follow-up to a police shooting in Baltimore, followed up with the cops on his own. He says he found—true to The Wire—”half-truths, obfuscations and apparent deceit,” and a local …
Ratings: A Stimulus for Fox News
During the election, with CNN and MSNBC surging on politics-news coverage (following a slump by Fox News over the preceding couple years), TV observers like Tuned In wondered how Fox News would do in a new Presidential era. The answer, for February anyway, is: pretty well. For the month (as defined by Nielsen) Fox was up 28%, CNN off by …
Report: U.S. Lifting Coffin-Photo Ban
The Defense Department will reportedly announce today that it is lifting the ban on news photographs of the returning of war dead to the U.S. Rather than hash the issue over again, here’s a column I wrote in 2006 about why this is a good idea.
As the HBO movie Taking Chance (based on a true story) demonstrated this month, chronicling …
Ratings: Oscars Up-ish, Dollhouse Down-ish
Certain critics may have groused about last night’s Oscars, but preliminary ratings have the broadcast up about 6% from last year. The rise, however, comes off an all-time low last year, so the broadcast may still be among the three lowest rated ever. Still, the odds are that much higher for more show tunes next year.
Meanwhile, there …
Top 10 Disastrous Letterman Interviews
Joaquin Phoenix appears on Late Show with David Letterman under the guise of his new bearded hip-hop persona, puzzling everyone. Here are a few more crazy Letterman interviews
Ratings Report: Obama Outdraws Idol?
According to preliminary Nielsen numbers, President Obama’s press conference drew a higher rating than the season premiere of American Idol, says the Hollywood Reporter. On the one hand, Idol only airs on one network. On the other hand, the preliminary press conference rating doesn’t includes the cable news networks, which will drive the …
Will the Last Person to Watch a Broadcast Network Please Turn Off the Set?
Why, you wonder, is NBC turning over a third of its weeknight programming to Jay Leno? There are specific reasons having to do with the in-the-toiletness of NBC at present, but there are also, as they say, systemic causes. Namely, no one is watching broadcast-network TV.
Well, not no one. But a new study has found viewership sharply …