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Maybe ABC should offer President Bush a sitcom deal. As the lone network carrying the president’s address last night, ABC got a small ratings boost over its regularly scheduled 8 p.m. programming, “Whose Line is It Anyway.” The president’s speech doubled the household rating from the last episode of “Whose Line” and earned an adult 18-49 rating 50 percent higher. At 9 p.m., Fox’s “Temptation Island 2” fought it out with ABC’s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” for which show could fade faster. Part two of the season premiere of “Temptation Island 2” dropped 20 percent of its audience from part one the night before, to finish the hour fourth in households and third among adults 18-49. As is becoming the pattern for the season, NBC’s “Friends” and a repeat of “Will and Grace” won the 8 p.m. hour, CBS’s “CSI” won the 9 p.m. hour, and NBC’s “ER” won the 10 p.m. hour. The preliminary Nielsen household rating and share and adult 18-49 rating for Thursday were: NBC 14.4/22 and 11.2, CBS 11.4/18 and 7.3, ABC 7.3/11 and 2.6, and Fox 4.1/6 and 3.3. On Wednesday, reality TV took another punch, as the “Temptation Island Reunion Wedding Special” and the debut of “Temptation Island 2” failed to muster much excitement. At 8 p.m., the wedding special finished fourth in both households and adults 18-49, behind the more family-friendly fare of NBC’s “Ed,” ABC’s “My Wife and Kids,” and CBS’s “Country Music Awards.” At 9 p.m., “Temptation Island 2” built on its lead-in audience by more than 10 percent, but the reality show still finished fourth in households and third among adults 18-49. NBC won the night, as usual, but CBS finished a close second in both households and adults 18-49 with its three-hour broadcast of the “Country Music Awards.” The preliminary Nielsen household rating and share and adult 18-49 rating for Wednesday were: NBC 11.1/17 and 6.1, CBS 11.0/17 and 5.9, ABC 6.3/10 and 3.7, and Fox 5.2/8 and 4.2.
ABC only network to air Bush's speech
It may be President Bush’s first year on the job, but he still ought to know better than to make a speech during primetime on the first Thursday of November sweeps. Two of the three major broadcast networks went ahead with their scheduled programming last night rather than air the speech, which they were told would address the issues of terrorism and the war in Afghanistan. That wasn’t necessarily unusual, as the White House did not, as it sometimes does, ask the networks to clear time on their schedules, but it’s probably reflective of the fervor of the programming battle that the speech would have preempted. NBC, which carried the address on MSNBC and CNBC, aired the top-rated "Friends," while CBS declined to budge "Survivor." Only ABC delayed the start of its show—not much of a sacrifice, since it was the 86th-ranked "Whose Line Is It, Anyway?" that got bumped.
AT&T cable will begin selling TiVo recorders
AT&T Broadband, the country’s largest cable operator, is going to sell the struggling TiVo digital video recorder to its customers in Denver, New England, and the San Francisco area starting next week. The deal is TiVo’s first with a cable company to market and distribute its service. The DVR, which can record up to 40 hours of programming, will be sold separately from AT&T’s cable service, for $300 plus a $9.95 monthly charge, but it may eventually be incorporated into a single cable box. TiVo will be made available to more of AT&T’s 14 million customers if this first sales effort proves successful. Since launching, TiVo has only been able to sign up 229,000 subscribers and recently began exploring alternate distribution channels. It signed a seven-year deal last month with Sony to incorporate TiVo into some of its electronics. And the company formed a new unit to license its technology. Around the same time, the San José, Calif.-based company laid off about 17 percent of its workforce. TiVo has concerned advertisers because viewers can use it to zip past commercials. The broadcast networks, in fact, recently sued Sonicblue’s ReplayTV, TiVo’s main competitor, for adding a feature to its service that makes skipping commercials easier.
E! lays off 75 people, or 9 percent of staff
The happy-go-lucky E! channel has become the latest victim of the downturn, laying off 75 employees this week. The cuts, which represent about 9 percent of the company’s workforce, came from the flagship E! channel and its sister channel, Style, as well as from the online and international divisions of E! Networks. Last week, MTV Networks announced plans to lay off as many as 450 people, while CNBC is expected to pink-slip around 15 employees.
WB orders up nine new episodes of 'Off Centre'
The WB network has ordered nine more episodes of its freshman Sunday comedy "Off Centre." It joins the other half of the 9 p.m. hour, "Nikki," in getting a full season's commitment. Though certainly not a ratings powerhouse, the Warner Bros. and Dreamworks co-production has picked up an average 1.5 rating among 12- to 34-year-olds and a 1.4 among the 18-34 demographic for its first four episodes. Not as fortunate is the rookie "Men, Women & Dogs," which has been canceled. The Paramount TV project will finish out its 13-episode run. The WB is reportedly mulling installing "For Your Love" in its 8:30 p.m. Sunday time slot as a midseason replacement, following "The Steve Harvey Show," which has yet to receive an extension beyond its original 13-episode order. The Frog Network has now given full-season orders to four of five freshman comedies this season: "Off Centre," "Reba," "Maybe It's Me" and "Raising Dad."
Maxim editor pens an episode of 'Drew Carey'
Dennis Publishing chief Felix Dennis prides himself on running a thrifty operation, but it may be time to loosen up the purse strings when your top editor starts moonlighting as a sitcom writer. The scribe behind the upcoming Nov. 14 episode of "The Drew Carey Show" is none other than Maxim editor Keith Blanchard, who met Carey at a party and found him to be "a lot of fun, a complete regular guy thrust into a celebrity role." Carey accepted an impromptu invitation to join the staff of Maxim on a retreat to Jamaica, where the two came up with the idea of having Blanchard pen an episode of the series and then write about the experience for the magazine. Blanchard, who wrote for a short-lived Comedy Central series before getting into magazines, says he started with a preexisting one-line premise for the episode. Together with the show's writers, he "broke out" the premise into a half-hour's worth of roughly sketched-out scenes, then went off on his own to produce a draft of the script, complete with dialogue. In the episode, Carey awakens to find himself handcuffed to a stranger in a Nashville, Tenn., dog pound. Rather than being taped, the show will be performed live in front of two studio audiences, with the cast including John Ratzenberger of "Cheers" fame and the Blue Man Group. And yes, Blanchard got paid for his efforts.
Bill Maher: Future not bright at ABC
Unlikely freedom-of-speech martyr Bill Maher says he does not anticipate ABC renewing his contract next year for his "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher." Tension and conflict with the Disney-owned network has reportedly soured into an irrevocable detachment. "Could we keep working together? Yeah, but there'd still be that tension and that conflict. They're not going to change and I'm not going to change," he explained in the December/January issue of Talk magazine. "After this whole thing, I'm not expected to be here after my contract runs out in 2002--if we make it that long," he added. Maher was castigated by the public, the White House, and advertisers, two of which, Sears and Federal Express, pulled their ads, for comments he made about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away," Maher said on the air Sept. 17. "That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building--say what you want about it, it's not cowardly," he said. He apologized two nights later, but was still admonished by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and other conservative critics.
November 9, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
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