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Things look bleak for ABC without "Monday Night Football." The network placed fourth last night with its post-football regular programming of a movie and "Gideon’s Crossing." The movie, "The Object of My Affection," fared decently, averaging a 7.0 household rating and topping NBC’s "Mysterious Ways." But "Gideon’s Crossing," debuting in its new Monday night time slot, dropped over 20 percent of this lead-in audience and finished last in its time slot by 5 household shares. Fox was the major beneficiary of ABC’s decline, easily winning the night among adults 18-49 and nearly beating CBS for the household win. The preliminary Nielsen household rating and share and adult 18-49 rating for Monday night were: CBS 8.9/13 and 4.7, Fox 8.6/12 and 7.0, NBC 7.7/11 and 4.3, and ABC 6.4/10 and 3.8. Over the weekend, Fox’s canceled "freakylinks" remained a weak link for the network, preventing Fox from taking a clean sweep among adults 18-49 on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. "freakylinks" lost 50 percent of its lead-in audience from "Police Videos" and dropped the network to fourth place on Friday. On Saturday, "Cops" and "America’s Most Wanted" won each of their time periods among adults 18-49. And on Sunday, new episodes of "The Simpsons," "Malcolm in the Middle" and "The X-Files" secured first place among adults 18-49 for Fox. Other weak performers over the weekend were CBS’s "The Fugitive," which had ratings 50 percent lower than its lead-out show "C.S.I." on Friday, and NBC’s Saturday movie "Batman Forever." The movie averaged only a 3.2/6 household rating and share, 35 percent lower than last week’s last place "Devil’s Own." The preliminary household rating and share and adult 18-49 rating for Friday night were: NBC 9.4/16 and 4.5, ABC 8.8/15 and 3.7, CBS 8.2/14 and 4.1 and Fox 3.7/6 and 3.1. On Saturday: CBS 6.7/12 and 2.6, Fox 6.5/11 and 4.1, ABC 5.9/10 and 4.0 and NBC 3.2/6 and 2.1. On Sunday: CBS 10.9/17 and 5.7, ABC 9.9/15 and 4.8, Fox 6.8/10 and 6.0 and NBC 6.3/10 and 3.6.
Oh please: Oedipal romp for 'Survivor II' mom?
Reality TV has taken a turn for the Oedipal. One of the contestants on the upcoming "Survivor II," a 45-year-old New Hampshire woman, is engaged to marry her own stepson, according to a report from the National Enquirer. Debb Eaton, a corrections officer, reportedly has tried to keep secret her plans to marry Bobby, son of her second husband, Don Eaton, who died in 1997. Bobby, who separated from his wife the same year, moved back into the house after his father died, and before long he was picking up where his dad had left off. "[I]f two people have a chance to be happy together, what’s wrong with that?" Bobby’s brother, Michael, told the Enquirer.
Forbes.com poaches top editor from Brit rival
Forbes.com has picked up a new editor, snatching Paul Maidment from his job running the Financial Times’ web site. Maidment, who founded FT.com, will also serve as executive editor of Forbes magazine. He joins Jim Spanfeller, who joined the company in December as head of new media before being promoted to CEO of Forbes.com and executive vice president of electronic publishing for Forbes earlier this month. Spanfeller was previously president of Ziff Davis Media’s Consumer Magazines Group, where he founded Yahoo! Internet Life magazine.
NBC will ax up to 10 percent of its workforce
As the broadcast advertising market continues to cool, NBC is slimming down to cope with the leaner times. The network says it will lay off between 300 and 600 employees over the next few months, with jobs being eliminated in every division. "It is no secret the current economic climate is affecting our business," wrote NBC chairman Bob Wright in a company-wide memo. NBC executives are reportedly hoping that new uses of technology will make the trimming, which will affect between 5 and 10 percent of the network's employees, easier. The last mass layoffs at NBC occurred two years ago when the network, struggling to cope with the escalating production costs for "Friends" and "ER," pink slipped more than 200 workers.
Playboy: CBS's
Arrington is our top sportsbabe
The votes have been tallied in Playboy.com’s "Sexiest
Sportscaster" poll, and you can bet the winner ain’t Pat Summerall.
Jill Arrington, who covers NFL football from the sidelines for CBS, took
honors as the hottest "Sportsbabe" with 26 percent of the vote.
Coming in second was Melissa Stark, the on-the-field reporter for ABC’s
"Monday Night Football," who garnered 23 percent of the vote.
Also in the rankings were NBC’s Hannah Storm, Fox’s Jillian Barberie
and CNN’s Inga Hammond. The contest drew a firestorm of criticism from
those who rail against the institutionalized sexism in broadcast
journalism, but a surprising degree of cooperation from the sportsbabes in
question: Stark, Bernstein and NBC’s Summer Sanders all reportedly sent
pictures of themselves for use in the poll. Arrington, the daughter of a
former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback, has declined an offer of $1
million to pose nude in Playboy.
On eve of mass
layoffs, CNN cans 'NewsStand'
Amid a major shakeup at CNN, the network has finally announced the
long-expected termination of newsmagazine show "NewsStand." The
show, brainchild of ousted CNN president Rick Kaplan, had been in limbo
for months. It was cut back to four nights a week in November after being
repeatedly bumped during the presidential election in favor of "The
Spin Room," and the rotating-anchor format was scrapped in favor of a
single host. Meanwhile, CNN staffers await news of a major restructuring
that is expected to see as many as a quarter of the network’s 4,000
staffers laid off. CNN has also announced that V.R. "Bob"
Furnaud, president of CNN Headline News, is retiring. No replacement has
been named.
Canceled 'Making the
Band' is suddenly very hot
ABC’s reality show,
"Making the Band," is returning with 13 episodes this spring.
When it does, the show will no longer be about the beginnings of a new boy
band but instead will be about a band with a top-10 single and the
promotional power of MTV. The band O-Town profiled in "Making"
released a single called "Liquid Dreams" that recently spent a
couple of weeks on the Billboard top-10. And, just yesterday, MTV ran a
marathon of the show, which was created by the Bunim-Murray team behind
MTV’s "The Real World." Whether that translates into a sizable
audience for ABC remains to be seen. When ABC first aired "Making the
Band" last year it premiered to 11.6 million viewers following an
episode of "Millionaire." But the show was moved to the now
defunct "TGIF" lineup of teen shows on Friday and quickly
vanished. The show was then pulled during the sweeps and returned to poor
ratings last summer. The WB premiered "Popstars" last Friday, a
similar show about the making of a girl band.
NBC gooses 'Friends'
to fend off 'Survivor'
What, us worry? NBC is moving to protect its all-important Thursday lineup
from ratings encroachment by a "Survivor II"-wielding CBS during
the February sweeps. In a rather unorthodox programming move, the Peacock
will guard its soft underbelly—the half-hour following
"Friends"—by extending the top-rated sitcom by about five
minutes, plus commercials, so that it ends around 8:40 p.m. rather than at
8:30 for the four weeks of February. The low-rated "The Weber
Show," which normally starts at 8:30, has been benched for the month;
filling in between the attenuated "Friends" and "Will &
Grace," at least for the first two weeks of sweeps, will be special
primetime editions of "Saturday Night Live" broadcast live from
New York. Susan Sarandon and former "Seinfeld" star Jason
Alexander will guest-star on "Friends" in February.
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