Here & there
PTC to CW affiliates: Dump 'Girl' threesome
By Louisa Ada Seltzer
Nov 5, 2009 - 1:01:17 AM

PTC to CW affiliates: Boycott 'Girl's' threesome
Call it a full-frontal assault. In advance of Monday's much-hyped threesome episode of "Gossip Girl," the CW's third-year series about rich collegiate Manhattanites, the Parents Television Council is throwing a fit, much as you'd expect from the group. It is urging local CW affiliates to preempt the episode, in which three characters get it on, set to air next week at 9 p.m. The network hasn't been at all coy about promoting the episode, using the tagline "1 Night 2 Experience 3 Some." It has used similarly provocative advertising campaigns for the show before, including posters reading "Every Parent's Worst Nightmare." The CW probably won't object to the stink; it has tangled with the PTC over "Girl" before, and this latest tussle only serves to raise awareness about the episode.

RDA's Purpose Driven Connection closes
Fortune Small Business wasn't the only magazine to shut down yesterday, though the second is a far younger title. Reader's Digest Association said it will close the year-old Purpose Driven Connection, based on the best-selling books with a similar title by Rev. Rick Warren. The quarterly magazine was distributed to those who bought a $29 membership to a group also called Purpose Driven Connection, which included social networking as well. The magazine, which was also sold on newsstands, launched at a particularly bad time for publishers, with ad pages in the industry off by roughly a third during the first three quarters of the year and newsstand sales seeing sharp declines amidst a lingering recession. Purposedriven.com will continue as a free site, and the final print issue will be out later this month.

Programming shorts: CBS cuts 'Numb3rs'
The “Numb3rs” aren’t adding up at CBS. In fact, they’re being subtracted after a disappointing start for the sixth-year show. The network has cut its order for the Friday night drama from 22 to 16, perhaps to make room for the midseason return of drama “Flashpoint.” Last week “Numb3rs” posted a 1.7 rating among viewers 18-49, easily the network’s lowest-rated show of the night behind “Ghost Whisperer” (2.0) and “Medium” (1.9). Meanwhile, in other programming, ABC will roll out the latest season of “The Bachelor” on Jan. 4 at 8 p.m., calling the season “On the Wings of Love.” Commercial pilot Jake Pavelka, who appeared on the most recent season of “The Bachelorette,” will be the new season’s bachelor. And on cable, FX is developing a Western drama entitled “Reconstruction,” set in post-Civil War Missouri. The script for the project will be written by “St. Elsewhere” co-creator Joshua Brand.

Study: Watching TV makes 3-year-olds violent
If your child's very presence inspires the other kids in his playgroup to take cover, you may want to consider turning off the television. Your child's violent tendencies may be caused by the tube. A new study published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found that 65 percent of mothers reported that their 3-year-old child watched more than two hours of TV per day, while being exposed to an average of 5.2 additional hours of household TV use per day. After accounting for factors such as parents, family, neighborhood and demographics, the study found that direct and indirect TV exposure were significantly associated with childhood aggression. The study says that one reason for this may be that households with higher rates of TV use may have fewer restrictions on kids’ viewing habits, leading to higher levels of aggression. “One explanation that could link both child and household TV measures with aggression involves the parenting environment,” write authors Jennifer A. Manganello of University at Albany, State University of New York and Catherine A. Taylor of the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans.



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