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ABC takes New Year's
Day on pigskin power
It was a rockin' New Year's Day for
ABC, which easily won the night of January 1 with coverage of college
football bowl games. Repeats of CBS's Monday night comedies held the
second place position for the network, while the reappearance of
"Mysterious Ways" on NBC helped that network finish third
overall. Reruns of "Boston Public" and "Ally McBeal"
dropped Fox to fourth. On New Year's Eve, Fox's repeats fared
better, with "The Simpsons" and "King of the Hill"
winning the night among adults 18-49 for Fox. CBS won the night
among households, despite the best efforts of "Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire?" and "Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve" on
ABC. The Nielsen overnight household rating and share and adult
18-49 rating for Monday, January 1, were: ABC 11.2/17 and 7.3, CBS 7.9/12
and 4.7, NBC 6.9/11 and 3.7, and Fox 4.8/7 and 3.2. For Sunday,
December 31: CBS 6.4/12 and 1.8, ABC 5.9/12 and 4.0, Fox 5.6/11 and 4.5,
and NBC 5.0/10 and 2.6. Meanwhile, the networks slid into the New Year's weekend with their
schedules mostly in repeat. On Saturday night, ABC's replay of the
Robin Williams movie "Jack" carried the evening for the network.
The movie won among both households and adults 18-49 in each of its time
periods. NBA basketball dropped the ball for NBC on Saturday,
scoring ratings 50 percent lower than its repeat competition. On
Friday, only two shows were not reruns-- both newsmagazines.
Neither won its timeslot, however, as the drama favorites of "C.S.I"
on CBS and "Providence" and "Law and Order: SVU"
remained the most popular programs of the night. The Nielsen
overnight household rating and share and adult 18-49 rating for Friday
night were: NBC 7.5/13 and 3.3, CBS 6.8/12 and 3.1, ABC 5.3/9 and 3.3, and
Fox 4.2/7 and 2.4. And for Saturday night: ABC 6.7/12 and 4.5,
CBS 6.3/11 and 2.6, Fox 6.1/10 and 3.8, and NBC 2.9/5 and 1.7.
ABC's 'Mole' cast:
Cops, lawyers and
gay pilot
Heading into the Jan. 9th premiere of "The Mole," ABC seems to
have learned well last summer’s lessons about casting a reality show.
The show’s producers have rounded up a group of 10 contestants to
challenge the "Survivor" crew in quirkiness—and a few of them
might seem familiar to those who watched Richard, Rudy, Susan & Co.
duke it out on Pulau Tiga. There’s Jim, the 29-year-old gay
lawyer/helicopter pilot from New Jersey who admits to suffering from
arrogance; Charlie, the 63-year-old retired New York City police officer;
Wendi, 29, a piercing enthusiast who’d use the prize money to get breast
augmentation surgery; and Kathryn, 28, another lawyer who touts her skills
as a liar. One of the ten players is the titular "mole," a
saboteur covertly tasked to trip up the group in the performance of
physical and psychological challenges assigned by the producers. Players
will be quizzed at the end of each episode about the identity of the mole,
with whoever knows the least getting tossed off the show. The contestant
remaining when the mole is unmasked in the season finale wins a cash prize
worth as much as $1 million.
FCC:
Shame on the networks for anti-drug sham
Further proof that the FCC's brand of justice is neither swift nor harsh:
A year after the networks were exposed for letting the government insert
anti-drug messages into primetime shows, the agency has spoken out to
condemn the practice, sort of. In what amounts to the mildest of
wrist-slaps, the FCC ruled last week that the networks violated federal
regulations by accepting payment from the White House Office of the
National Drug Control Policy without naming it as a sponsor. The ruling
carries no penalties or fines, although the networks have been instructed
to notify viewers of the government sponsorship when rebroadcasting any of
the shows in question. The arrangement was first reported in Dec. 1999 in
online magazine Salon. Writer Daniel Forbes detailed how ABC, NBC, CBS,
Fox and the WB all allowed anti-drug themes and plots to be woven into
sitcoms and dramas including "ER," "Chicago Hope" and
"Beverly Hills 90210." In exchange, they received credits for
commercial time the ONDCP had bought at discounted rates.
Court to Kuralt's mistress:
You can keep the ranch
Two and a half years after her lover's death, Charles
Kuralt's mistress has finally been recognized by a court as the legal heir
to a 90-acre estate formerly owned by the late CBS newsman. The Montana
Supreme Court last week rejected the claims of Kuralt's two daughters in
ruling that the property, a fishing retreat along the Big Hole River,
rightfully belongs to Patricia Shannon, with whom Kuralt carried on a
29-year extramarital affair. His widow, Suzanne Kuralt, did not know of
her husband's mistress until after his death and sought to claim the land,
valued at $600,000, for her own. After she passed away in Oct. 1999, her
daughters took up the fight, receiving their first setback last February
when a court ruled that a letter written by Kuralt two weeks before his
death from lupus could serve as a legal indication of his last will.
Outta bucks,
quality TV
group calls it quits
Pushing for better TV is a thankless cause, as the group Viewers for
Quality Television has learned over the course of its 15 years. Now the
non-profit organization, which pressures networks "to retain their
critically-acclaimed quality series rather than canceling them because of
insufficient Nielsen numbers," is closing its doors. "While the
reasons for corporate dissolution at this time are multiple, the most
overriding one is financial," writes VQT founder Dorothy Swanson on
the group’s web site. "There are too few of us to continue the
fight and to financially support meaningful work." Over the years,
VQT has championed such ratings-starved but critically-beloved series as
"I’ll Fly Away," "Brooklyn Bridge," "Life Goes
On" and "South Central."
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