News Shorts

CBS takes back Monday night
The end of Olympic coverage put CBS back on top among adults 18-49 and households on Monday night. Its regular lineup brought in a 5.1 adult
18-49, just ahead of a 5.0 from NBC and a 4.9 from Fox. ABC trailed with a 3.0, based on preliminary Nielsen ratings. Just as it did before the Olympics, NBC's "Fear Factor" continues to draw viewers with its gross-out material, as its 5.5 adult 18-49 rating topped a 4.9 from CBS's "King of Queens" and "Yes, Dear" and a 4.8 from Fox's "Boston Public." At 9 p.m. "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "Becker" dominated the hour with a 6.8 in adults 18-49, well ahead of a 5.0 from Fox's "Ally McBeal" and a 4.3 from NBC's "Third Watch." Rookie drama "Crossing Jordan" continued to coast, finishing a point-and-a-half ahead of its closest competitor, CBS's "Family Law," in the adult 18-49 demographic. ABC came in last every half-hour with its special "All New Bloopers" and the Nicole Kidman-Sandra Bullock movie "Practical Magic." The average household rating and share for Monday night were: CBS 9.7/15, NBC 7.9/12, Fox 7.0/11, and ABC 5.5/9. On Sunday night, the winter Olympics on NBC went out with a bang, as the last three hours of coverage captured the fourth-highest ratings of the Olympiad, vaulting the network into a dominant win in adults 18-49 and households. NBC captured an 11.4 adult 18-49 rating for the night, Fox had a 4.5, ABC a 3.4 and CBS a 2.6, based on preliminary Nielsen ratings. For the 8-11 p.m. block, NBC averaged a 13.1, behind only the 15.4 from the opening ceremonies and the 13.9 and 15.0 from two nights of figure skating. Overall the games from Salt Lake City averaged a 10.7 among adults 18-49 during the 17 days. At 7 p.m. anticipation of the Olympics fueled a 6.4 adult 18-49 rating for NBC's "Dateline," which easily outdistanced a 3.5 from two episodes of "King of the Hill" on Fox. A new "Simpsons" and a repeat of "Malcolm in the Middle" gave Fox another commanding second-place win the next hour with a 5.9 in the demo, more than the combined audience for CBS's "Education of Max Bickford" and the second hour of the Disney movie "Tarzan" on ABC. At 9 p.m. "The Rosa Parks Story" on CBS came in last place in adults 18-49 in every one of its half-hours, as repeats of "The Simpsons" and "Bernie Mac" on Fox took the first hour and ABC's "The Practice" won the 10 p.m. hour. The average household rating and share for Sunday night were: NBC 20.0/30, CBS 6.9/10, ABC 5.4/8 and Fox 5.3/8.

'West Wing's' Sorkin: The media drool for Bush
"The West Wing" is sometimes criticized for presenting an idealized and skewed version of the Presidency. As it happens, Aaron Sorkin, the show's creator and writer, thinks the news media are guilty of doing the same thing. "President Bush seems to be handling things very well, and I support him one hundred per cent," Sorkin tells writer Tad Friend in this week's issue of The New Yorker. "I also think it's absolutely right that at this time we're all laying off the bubblehead jokes. But that's a far cry from what the Times and CNN and others on whom we rely for unvarnished objectivity are telling us, which is that, 'My God! On September 12th he woke up as Teddy Roosevelt! He became the Rough Rider!'" Sorkin is particularly critical of a recent NBC News special, "The Bush White House: Inside the Real West Wing." Hosted by Tom Brokaw, the show followed Bush around on a busier-than-average day, giving the impression, at least in Sorkin's mind, that he works harder than he really does. "[T]he show was a valentine to Bush," says Sorkin. "That illusion may be what we need right now, but the truth is we're simply pretending to believe that Bush exhibited unspeakable courage at the World Series by throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium, or that he, by God, showed those terrorists by going to Salt Lake City and jumbling the first line of the Olympic opening ceremony." Jumblers may not have it so easy on "The West Wing," where fictional President Josiah Bartlet is running for reelection this fall against a challenger who, in Sorkin's words, is "not the sharpest tool in the box but who's raised a lot of money and is very popular with the Republican Party."

Report: Disney wooing Costas from NBC
Will Bob Costas follow the bouncing ball from NBC to ESPN? Disney executives hope so, according to published reports. Costas has been at NBC for 22 years, but his contract expires this summer, and Disney is said to be courting him for basketball and baseball coverage on its ABC and ESPN networks. Now would be a logical time to jump, with the winter Olympics concluded and NBA games slated to air on ABC and ESPN next season. NBC elected in December not to renew its contract with the league. The Disney networks also have Major League Baseball, the NFL, and NCAA basketball, and Disney is thought to be willing to beat Costas' current $3-million-a-year salary.

Holdout 'Malcolm' mom forces shutdown
Now that Fox has anointed "Malcolm in the Middle" its new favorite series, star Jane Kaczmarek has apparently decided to test the network's devotion by holding out for a hefty raise. The twice Emmy-nominated actress left the set two weeks ago, prompting show producer Regency Television to cancel filming some of the season's final episodes and to write her out of several others. Production will shut down this Friday, weeks before the usual end date, which will lead to as few as 21 episodes of an original 24-episode order. Kaczmarek has thus far blamed her absence on migraines, but her representatives are said to have spent the time lobbying for a substantial raise. She left for two days last fall but was lured back by small raises for her and the rest of the cast. Her husband, "West Wing" actor Bradley Whitford, staged a successful walkout last summer along with most of that show's cast. Each ended up receiving a doubled salary of $70,000 an episode.

'Rosie O'Donnell' boob-flashing mystery, solved
It turns out that last week's R-rated "Rosie O'Donnell Show" moment was the work of an accidental flasher. O'Donnell told viewers yesterday that the woman, a member of the studio audience, who briefly bared her breasts just before the show cut to commercial was only trying to show off a handmade T-shirt her granddaughter had made for her. The woman was escorted from the studio by security, but O'Donnell caught up with her in an internet chat room devoted to the show. "She was hysterical," O'Donnell told viewers. "She didn't know her shirt went up. She was in her car on the way back home to Massachusetts before she figured it out. We started cracking up and I said to her, 'Can you believe you showed your boobs on my show?'"

Printer-Friendly Version | Send to a Friend
Cover Page | Contact Us