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As they did for most of the season, CBS and Fox split Sunday night with their regular programs. Reruns of Fox’s cartoons and “Malcolm in the Middle” won every half-hour among adults 18-49 from 7-9 p.m., but at 9 p.m., a repeat of “The X-Files” lost the demographic to NBC’s repeat of the movie “The Saint.” In households, CBS’s “60 Minutes” and “Touched by an Angel” won three of their four half-hours from 7-9 p.m., while ABC’s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” and “The Practice” won all four of their half-hours from 9-11 p.m. ABC couldn’t overtake CBS’s lead, however, and CBS won the night in households. The preliminary Nielsen household rating and share and adult 18-49 rating for Sunday night were: CBS 6.2/11 and 1.8, ABC 5.8/11 and 2.2, NBC 4.7/9 and 2.6, and Fox 3.5/7 and 2.8. Over the weekend, Fox captured young adults, winning all eight of its half-hours among adults 18-49. On Friday night, Fox’s showing of “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” tied the network with ABC and NBC for first place for the evening in the demographic. On Saturday night, Fox’s two- hour block of “Cops” repeats gave the network more than a half rating point edge over the other three networks in the nightly averages. CBS swept the weekend in households with a full slate of its old fogey fare. Two episodes of “Diagnosis Murder” and a “Nash Bridges” won Friday night, while one “Walker, Texas Ranger” and two episodes of “The District” won Saturday night. The preliminary Nielsen household rating and share and adult 18-49 rating for Friday night were: CBS 5.1/10 and 1.5, NBC 5.0/10 and 2.1, ABC 4.9/10 and 2.1, and Fox 4.2/9 and 2.1. For Saturday night: CBS 4.6/10 and 1.3, Fox 4.4/10 and 2.9, ABC 3.8/8 and 1.8, and NBC 3.1/7 and 2.2.
Primedia lands Emap with $515 M bid
The wrangling for Emap USA is over. Primedia has come out on top with a $515 million bid, mostly in cash. The collection of titles, for which U.K.-based Emap PLC laid out $1.5 billion in cash and debt assumption only three years ago, was expected to fetch a somewhat higher price. The British media conglomerate will hold onto men’s title FHM, which launched last year. Its other titles, most of which serve niche markets of one kind or another, will go to Primedia, making it the second-largest magazine publisher in the U.S., according to a release issued today. Primedia, whose best-known titles include Seventeen and Automobile magazines, is particularly anxious to get its hands on Teen and Motor Trend. Losing out in the bidding were American Media, publisher of the National Enquirer, and buyout firm Texas Pacific Group.
Actors talks continue past deadline
The deadline has passed, but talks between Hollywood actors and producers are still going, with the two sides meeting for 14 hours yesterday in a marathon attempt to bridge their differences. The actors, represented by the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and the producers, represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, are scheduled to resume talks at 10 a.m. PDT today. Negotiations have reportedly shifted into higher gear following the passage of the June 30 deadline, and both sides are said to be optimistic about a deal. The central issue still seems to be a demand by the actors for a bigger cut of cable licensing fees, an increase the producers are unwilling to grant for fear of facing similar demands from the writers’ and directors’ unions in future negotiations.
Study: Fox News leans hard to the right
"We report, you decide"? Hardly, says a new study that examined Fox News Channel's programming for signs of conservative political bias. Rupert Murdoch's bluster aside, the report, from a group calling itself Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, finds evidence for what it calls "an overwhelming slant on Fox towards both Republicans and conservatives." Forming the centerpiece of the accusation is an analysis of the guests interviewed by Brit Hume on his daily news show. According to the report, out of 56 guests who identified themselves by party, 50 were Republicans and only six were Democrats. A looser examination of guests' political leanings found that over two-thirds of 92 guests over a 19-week period were "avowed conservatives." The report also notes that a disproportionate number of the women, blacks and Latinos invited on the show were conservative or Republican.
Brit men's title in big recall over randy drawing
British men's magazine Loaded has had to send all 400,000 copies of its August issue back to the printers to remove a single page of content. The culprit? A drawing of an erect penis. Publisher IPC was unhappy with the inclusion of the image and ordered its removal at the last minute, a move that will cost it thousands of dollars. All the issues had already been printed and bound in preparation for a July 5 newsstand date. This is the second black eye for editor Keith Kendrick since taking over in April. Earlier, Kendrick earned the ire of his bosses with a memo in which he suggested stories like including "women confess what it's like to be the meat in a sex sandwich" and "what to do if a love rival chops off your dick," according to the U.K.'s MediaGuardian. The decision to excise the offending page was apparently motivated by considerations of taste rather than legality, as the U.K.'s Obscene Publications Act 1959, which allows police to prosecute over images which may deprave or corrupt the public, would almost certainly not have been invoked in this matter. Started in 1994, Loaded is the aged progenitor to Maxim, Stuff, FHM and other so-called "lads' magazines."
July 2, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
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