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CBS’s “Touched by an Angel” ruled its old stomping ground last night, winning the 8 p.m. hour in households by five household shares and helping CBS to an easy household win on Sunday night. The rest of CBS’s lineup, “60 Minutes” at 7 p.m. and the movie “A Town Without Christmas” at 9 p.m., also won in households, with the exception of the 7 p.m. half-hour, which went to Fox’s “NFL Postgame.” Fox won every half-hour among adults 18-49 for the night, except for the last half-hour of “The X-Files.” ABC’s “Alias” won the 9:30 p.m. half-hour in the demographic instead. The preliminary Nielsen household rating and share and adult 18-49 rating for Sunday were: CBS 11.5/18 and 3.8, Fox 7.6/12 and 6.0, ABC 6.5/10 and 4.2, and NBC 5.6/9 and 3.6. Over the weekend, it was classic dilemma: did audiences stop watching Friday and Saturday nights first, or did networks quit programming them first? Either way, it was a lackluster weekend all around. NBC nearly swept Friday night in households and adults with “Providence,” “Dateline” and “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” but ABC’s “Before They Were Stars” stole the 9 p.m. hour in the demographic. On Saturday night, CBS won both households and adults 18-49 with an 11 household share and a 2.9 demographic rating. The night’s programming offerings were so limited that “Touched by an Angel” won a half-hour among adults 18-49. The preliminary Nielsen household rating and share and adult 18-49 rating for Friday night were: NBC 8.7/16 and 3.8, ABC 5.2/10 and 3.0, CBS 5.1/9 and 2.1, and Fox 3.0/5 and 2.1. For Saturday night: CBS 6.1/11 and 2.9, ABC 4.8/9 and 1.6, Fox 4.0/8 and 2.3, and NBC 3.8/7 and 2.5.
Vivendi buys USA's TV assets for $10.3B
Vivendi Universal moved decisively over the weekend to accelerate its transformation from a utility into a media company in the mold of AOL Time Warner, Viacom and Disney. This morning, Vivendi confirmed that it has reached a deal to buy the television assets of USA Networks Inc. for around $10.3 billion. USA chairman Barry Diller, a former studio chief and creator of the Fox television network, will serve as chairman and chief executive of the new subsidiary, to be called Vivendi Universal Entertainment. USA will hang onto the Home Shopping Network and Ticketmaster, while Vivendi is keeping Universal Music Group, the world's biggest music company, out of the new venture. Also this weekend, Vivendi agreed to buy a 10 percent stake in satellite broadcaster EchoStar Communications at a cost of $1.5 billion.
Disney outbids NBC for hoops rights
The National Basketball Association appears to have succeeded in finding a suitor that will beat NBC's $1.3 billion bid for a new four-year television rights deal. The Walt Disney Co. has reportedly agreed to pay about $1.6 billion for the NBA games on ABC in broadcast and on ESPN in cable. The deal marks a further retreat from big-name sports for NBC, which three years ago turned down the rights to air National Football League games. The network is said to have lost hundreds of millions of dollars on the NBA over the last couple of seasons. The NBA has also forged a pact with AOL Time Warner, which will carry games in cable on TNT and CNN/SI. The latter will be rebranded as AOL Sports, with the NBA taking a 50 percent ownership stake.
O'Reilly: I'd consider taking on Hillary in '06
Would conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly ever consider taking a shot at public office? Only if it would allow him to lay the smack on Hillary Clinton, says O'Reilly in the new issue of Television Quarterly. Asked if he might challenge Clinton for her Senate seat in 2006, the renowned Hillary-basher says, "The only way I would do that is if I was just so fed up with television that I didn't want to do it anymore and there was nobody else to run against her. I mean, I would hate to see her unopposed." Though he's widely viewed as a right winger, O'Reilly tries to cast himself as an independent, noting his support for limited gun control, abortion rights and government action on global warming and his opposition to the death penalty. Although critics have shown that his background is middle-class, if not upper-middle-class, O'Reilly prefers to think of himself as a blue-collar hero who attracts the ire of elitists like Slate's Michael Kinsley. "I'm the first person in this country to command a national audience and bring working class sensibility to the program. Never happened before. Never. And they hate it. They hate it because I'm watching them. I'm not in the club."
D'oh! College offers course in Simpsonology
As if "The Simpsons" hasn't had enough influence on America's young, a college in Michigan plans to offer a course based on the iconic series, which is in its 13th season on Fox. Students at Siena Heights University, a Catholic university in Adrian, Mich., have been signing up for "Animated Philosophy and Religion," taught by Professors Kimberly Blessing and Anthony Sciglitano. The two-credit course will draw from texts including "The Gospel According to the Simpsons" by Mark Pinsky and "The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’oh! of Homer" by William Irwin. The course is open to students of all faiths, be they Christian, Jew or miscellaneous.
December 17, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
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