FCC expected to let Viacom keep UPN
With its waiver about to run out, Viacom is expected to get regulatory approval late this week for its ownership of two broadcast networks. The Federal Communications Commission is expected to amend a rule that prohibits one entity from owning two national broadcast networks. A majority of the agency's commissioners have reportedly agreed to the rule change, which will still prevent any of the four major TV networks from merging with each other. Viacom ran afoul of the old rule last year, when it bought out partner Chris-Craft's 50 percent stake in UPN and took possession of CBS. The company obtained a temporary waiver allowing dual ownership, which expires May 5.

NBC cues up three nights of 'Weakest Link'
NBC is hoping desperately that "The Weakest Link" will prove to be a hit on the scale of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." Fittingly, the network is launching the new game show with "Millionaire"-like exposure. In addition to its debut tonight at 8 p.m., "Link" will air twice more this week: tomorrow from 9:30 to 10:30 p.m., and Wednesday from 10-11 p.m. To make room for the extra installments, rookie series "Three Sisters" will be preempted and "Dateline" will run only 30 minutes on Tuesday. On Wednesday, "Ed" will be bumped from the schedule, with "The West Wing" and "Law & Order" getting moved up one hour. "Link," which is, like "Millionaire," a British import, is being heavily promoted with a campaign playing on host Anne Robinson's catchphrase, "You are the weakest link. Goodbye."

'Survivor' outcome a secret, even to the players
There's trouble ahead for CBS's "Survivor 2" if the post-Super Bowl ratings are any indication. The show averaged a 25.3/38 household rating and share in preliminary Nielsen numbers last night but dropped in ratings in its second half-hour. Losing audience in the second half is nearly unheard of among reality shows; even ABC's "The Mole" improves its ratings over the course of the hour. "Survivor's" ratings were also four ratings points below the highest-rated post-Super Bowl program, a 1996 episode of "Survivor's" Thursday nemesis "Friends." And excusing last night's performance on a low-rated football game and audience fatigue doesn't work either. During the typically low-rated summer, "Survivor" averaged a 17.0 household rating over its 13-episode run and posted a 28.6 rating for its final episode. Last night's "Survivor 2" got the largest lead-in audience possible but couldn't match last summer's finale with ratings only about 50 percent higher than the season's average.

Stabbing victim sues The Learning Channel
Cable network The Learning Channel has a legal headache after airing footage of emergency skull surgery against the patient's wishes. Michael Hill, a resident of Jacksonville, Fla., is suing the network for broadcasting the operation, which was performed after Hill was stabbed in the head in 1998. Though he signed a consent form, Hill says he thought he was giving the network permission to air an interview he gave, not the surgery. He says the segment on "Trauma: Life in the ER" resulted in unwanted celebrity. "I'll be in the Winn-Dixie, and people will say, 'Oh, you're the guy with the knife in your head,'" Hill told a Florida newspaper recently.

'Diff'rent Strokes' star rescues drowning woman
The teen we knew and loved as Willis on early '80s sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes," Todd Bridges, has been given kudos for saving the life of a paraplegic woman whose wheelchair rolled into a lake. Stella Kline's electric wheelchair dropped into a lake in the San Fernando Valley on Thursday as her fishing line caught on the chair's controls. She became trapped underneath the chair in three feet of water. Bridges, along with brother James, quickly swept into action, as they had also been fishing nearby. "I was thanking God that he was there," said Kline, 50.  "And you know, everybody's been saying nothing but bad stuff about Todd Bridges on the news and in the papers...he has a heart of gold." The yin to Gary Coleman's yang appeared modest about the hubbub, saying, "We felt God put us there at the right time to save this lady's life, because there was no one else around."

Layoffs at the NY Times and WSJ
Dow Jones & Co. said Thursday it is eliminating approximately 2 percent of its workforce, or 202 workers. Three-hundred job openings were also canceled. The slowest horse appears to be the print publishing division, comprised largely of The Wall Street Journal, where operating income was down 83 percent from the first quarter a year ago. The news came along with reports of first-quarter earnings just below expectations, which had already been lowered twice. The news is not entirely unexpected, as the company announced a month ago that it planned to make "limited" staff cuts along with other cost reductions. Over at The New York Times, an unspecified number of cuts will take place across the company's business units. Voluntary buyouts are said to be preferred during the next two to three months of slimming down, but an unknown number of layoffs in freelance, temporary and possibly full-time positions will be inevitable. NYDigital will also be forced to undertake some reductions, even after a 17 percent slash in January.

Abercrombie magalog deemed too hot for Utah
For four years, clothier Abercrombie & Fitch has blurred the line between catalogue and magazine with A&F Quarterly. Chock-full of frayed chinos and latent homoeroticism, the publication is as much a staple of frat house reading as Maxim. But with its Spring Break 2001 issue, A&F Quarterly has blurred the line again--this time between lifestyle magalog and skin book. The company has decided not to make the new issue available at its store in Utah, citing a law that prohibits the sale of pornographic materials at stores with customers under 18 years of age. The new issue features page after page of nude and seminude pictures by photographer Bruce Weber, with models' genitals barely hidden from view. Abercrombie & Fitch, which plans to open a second retail store in the state, has gotten in trouble with the morality police before, in Utah and elsewhere. The company began asking for proof of age at stores in Michigan after receiving a warning from the state Attorney General's Office for an incident in which a 10-year-old girl allegedly bought a copy of the A&F Quarterly. Another outcry arose after a back-to-school issue of the publication featured recipes for alcoholic mixed drinks.

April 16, 2001 © 2001 Media Life

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