News Shorts

Kwan delivers NBC a big Olympic bump
Michelle Kwan's first-place finish in the figure skating short program drew a huge audience for NBC last night, as its adult 18-49 audience surged 62 percent from the previous night, making it the second-highest-rated night so far of this Olympiad. NBC easily took the night with a 13.9 adult 18-49 rating, Fox had a 4.1, ABC a 3.4 and CBS a 2.0, based on preliminary Nielsen ratings. NBC's Olympic coverage began with a strong 11.6 at 8 p.m. and surged to a 16.3 by 9 p.m., falling off gradually to a 11.9 at 10:30 p.m. At 8 p.m. Fox held up well with a 4.5 among adults 18-49 from its duo of "That '70s Show" and "Undeclared," while reruns of "My Wife and Kids" and "According to Jim" on ABC grabbed a 3.3 for third place. At 9 p.m. Fox's "24" didn't do as well as its lead-in, capturing only a 3.7 adult 18-49 rating for the hour. A new episode of ABC's "NYPD Blue" at 10 p.m. drew a 4.1 adult 18-49 rating for second place, less than a third of the Olympic audience. CBS was stuck in the basement all night as repeats of "JAG," "The Guardian," and "Judging Amy" never made it past a 2.4 in adults 18-49. The average household rating and share for Tuesday night were: NBC 22.8/35, CBS 5.6/9, ABC 5.5/8, and Fox 4.9/7. On Monday night, the ratings for NBC's coverage of the winter Olympics slipped again just a bit. Yet the Games from Salt Lake City still gave the network a commanding win in households and adults 18-49 for the night. NBC had an 8.6, Fox had a 4.3, CBS a 4.1 and ABC a 3.3, based on preliminary Nielsen ratings. The night's 18-49 rating was the third lowest of the games so far, just above the 8.4 and 8.2 logged over the weekend on Friday and Saturday night, respectively. It represented a small decline from an 8.8 on Sunday and a 23 percent fall from last Monday's 11.1 adult 18-49 rating. At 8 p.m. Fox's "Boston Public" topped reruns of "King of Queens" and "Yes, Dear" with a 4.5 among adults 18-49. At 9 p.m. repeats of "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "Becker" on CBS beat out a new episode of "Ally McBeal" on Fox by almost a full rating point. ABC came in last in every half-hour all night as a repeat of "My Wife & Kids" and the Harrison Ford movie "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" never drew more than a 3.5 adult 18-49 rating all night. The average household rating and share for Monday night were: NBC 16.7/25, CBS 7.3/11, Fox 6.0/9 and ABC 5.0/8.

Piercing pop quiz proves costly for 'Survivor'
CBS has paid two "Survivor: Africa" contestants $100,000 each in shut-up money after realizing that the show's producers screwed up at a pivotal point in the competition. The costly error came in the form of a botched immunity challenge question in the series finale. The four contestants remaining by that point--eventual winner Ethan Zohn, runner-up Kim Johnson, goat rancher Tom Buchanan and marketer Lex van den Berghe--were asked, "Which female survivor does not have anything pierced, including her ears?" Johnson won the challenge by answering Kelly Goldsmith, but it turned out that Lindsey Richter was also unpierced. Van den Berghe, who had guessed Richter, and Buchanan eventually got paid as though they had finished in second place. On other game shows including "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," losing contestants have sued for lost prize money and another chance on the show after discovering that a question they were asked had an incorrect answer or more than one correct answer.

Rosie's 'I'm gay' moment on 'Primetime Thursday'
Rosie O'Donnell's coming-out party has a date. O'Donnell will publicly say that she is a lesbian for the first time on ABC's "Primetime Thursday" on March 14. The talk show host reportedly agreed to talk about her sexual orientation only in the context of a discussion about whether same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt children. In the interview, which was taped last Thursday, O'Donnell, who is mother to three adopted children and a foster child, voices opposition to a Florida law that prohibits gay couples from adopting. Diane Sawyer conducted the interview, and her ABC News rival Barbara Walters has, as usual, been criticized for trying to upstage her colleague. Walters brought up O'Donnell's support for gay adoption on Thursday, but said she had no intention of beating out Sawyer on the story. "This had nothing to do with getting an interview with Rosie, but I am sensitive enough now as I look back to see how it could be interpreted that way and how, if one didn't know the story and wanted to create a story, it could look as if I was trying to harm Diane," Walters told the New York Post yesterday.

More info on the New York Sun
Want to go to work for New York’s newest daily newspaper? Better brew some coffee. Reporters and editors for the New York Sun may have to stay up as late as 3 a.m. putting their baby to bed. Sun founders Seth Lipsky and Ira Stoll are thinking about putting off their paper's close long enough to get a look at the next day's New York Times so they can respond to its coverage, according to the New York Observer. Stoll, the Sun's managing editor, currently edits SmarterTimes.com, a site dedicated to exposing the supposed liberal bias of the Gray Lady. The Sun will be conservative in its editorial views, but its founders say its news reporting will be objective. The paper, whose debut is still some months away, is expected to run about 16 pages per issue and employ a news staff of about 25.

Study: Watching TV is addictive, for real
What's the difference between a crack pipe and the boob tube? Less than you think, maybe. A new study published in Scientific American suggests what many of us already feared: TV is addictive. Authors Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discovered startling similarities between the effects of TV watching and those of drug addiction. They label the high given by TV an "orienting response," our physical reaction to sudden movement, namely the quick cuts and edits of music videos or commercials. To measure the effect of this high, participants were asked six to eight times through beepers what they were doing and how they felt. The results from standardized scorecards revealed that viewers reported feeling comfortable and relaxed while watching TV, but lost that sense of tranquility once the set was turned off. The continued pattern of losing comfort, the authors suggest, has a withdrawal-like effect, conditioning viewers not to turn off their televisions. Heavy TV users reported feeling less enjoyment than light users. Participants also reported feelings of depletion and a decreased ability to concentrate afterwards, though no such change occurred after reading or playing sports.

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