Trailers for some of the most anticipated new TV shows airing this fall
upfronts
Tuned InTelevision
Upfronts Watch: The CW: More Beauties, More Beasts
In my upfronts post about ABC the other day, I talked about how the broadcast networks spend the week trying to distinguish themselves from each other, even though they are far more like each other than the much-more-specialized cable networks are. The CW is an exception. Its ratings are much more like cable (often below some cable …
Tuned InTV Networks
Upfronts Watch: CBS: Eye on the Prize
“You know what we do,” said CBS scheduling executive Kelly Kahl at a Wednesday-morning announcement of the network’s fall schedule. “We do pretty much the same things every year.” To be fair to Kahl, he was talking about …
Tuned InTelevision
Upfronts Watch: ABC: Once More, With Feelings
An amazing thing about the TV upfronts is seeing how each of the major networks tries to distinguish itself, while all essentially offering the same thing. In the grand scheme of media, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox are not all that different. Yes, they each have a certain style and aim for certain audiences, but they each have their …
Today’s Trailer (TV Edition): The Mindy Project
Last November, Mindy Kaling—best known as a writer/producer/actor on The Office—told TIME that she was working on a pilot for NBC, in which she would play an obstetrician-gynocologist. Her mother is just such a doctor, and Kaling said that “there is something inherently funny about being an ob-gyn.” Now she can prove it: a trailer …
Tuned InTelevision
Upfronts Watch: Fox Tinkers, NBC Laughs Through Its Tears
I was out of town yesterday as broadcast-network upfront season began, with NBC and Fox announcing their new fall schedules for advertisers. I’ll be attending and/or following the remaining announcements this week, and I’ll have …
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Programming Note: Out of the Office, and Out at the Upfronts
I’m going to be away with the Tuned In family for a long weekend through Monday night, so I’m going to miss the first day of Upfronts Week, in which the major networks (on Monday, NBC and Fox) announce their fall schedules for advertisers. Fortunately, NBC and Fox have obliged me by announcing many of their fall pickups early. I wrote a …
Music Video Website Vevo Wants to Tell You What to Listen To
Music fans can feel like they should be listening to all of the music, all the of the time. Thankfully, music platforms like Vevo are working to help cut through all that…you know, noise.
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Upfronts 2011: What We Learned
The major broadcast schedule presentations, or “upfronts,” ended yesterday. I’ve given some impressions of the 2011–12 shows we saw previewed this week, but it’s worth repeating that those are nothing more than impressions, based on trailers, which can give nothing more than a thumbnail idea of a show and often a misleading one. Over …
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Upfronts 2011: Sarah Michelle Gellar Is Back, and Other Familiar Sights from The CW
The CW is TV’s newest major (if you want to call it that) broadcast network, even if you count the predecessors it was formed from—The WB and UPN—which date back to the mid-’90s. But it’s old enough by now to have a history, and the new shows it announced today, rounding out the broadcast upfronts for the year, recall that history …
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Upfronts 2011: CBS Unveils New Shows, Erases Sheen and Couric
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV1vPuVRyGg]
The TV upfronts are a big fast car with no rear-view mirror. The shining vista of the future is extolled. The good times of the present are celebrated. And the flaming car wrecks of the past, littering the highway behind? Never happened! Moving forward!
CBS, to be fair, is doing well …
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Upfronts 2011: CBS Keeps It Simple
Every spring, the daffodils bloom in April, kids start playing baseball again, and I get to type the sentence: “Emphasizing the stability of its lineup, CBS announced a fall schedule with just a handful of changes.” CBS is strong, and it is stable; it’s arguably the only TV network left able to put together a lineup like the Big Three …
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Upfronts 2011: ABC Embraces the Fantasy
When I interviewed Sopranos creator David Chase back in 2002—before the show’s first season since 9/11—he went on a tear about the theory, then popular among TV executives, that the terror attacks meant that people would want “comfort food” programming. “People are going to want less complexity, people are going to want more …