Celeb 'Fear Factor' walks away with 18-49s
Who knew Alan Thicke was still so popular? NBC posted big numbers among adults 18-49 last night with a special 90-minute celebrity edition of "Fear Factor." NBC garnered a 5.7 adult 18-49 rating, CBS had a 4.6, Fox a 4.1 and ABC a 2.8, based on preliminary Nielsen ratings. Featuring Kevin Richardson of the Backstreet Boys, actor Stephen Baldwin, and former "Growing Pains" dad Alan Thicke, the first hour of the reality series posted a 6.9 adult 18-49 rating, beating out a 4.7 from Fox's "Boston Public" and a 4.4 from repeats of "King of Queens" and "Yes, Dear" on CBS. ABC's "Wayne Brady" struggled in its second week, drawing only a 1.7 in adults 18-49. At 9 p.m. "Fear Factor" jumped to a 9.0 adult 18-49 rating, though that was squandered by the new "Colin Quinn," which lost a ridiculous 60 percent from its lead-in. Fox's premiere of "American Embassy" didn't do any better, bringing in a weak 3.5 for the hour after dropping 28 percent of its "Boston Public" lead-in. At 10 p.m. CBS's new "Amazing Race 2" drew a mild 3.9 adult 18-49 rating, just below a 4.1 from NBC's "Saturday Night Live Remembers John Belushi." The average household rating and share for Monday night were: CBS 8.4/13, NBC 7.7/12, Fox 6.5/10, and ABC 5.1/8. On Sunday night, the "9/11" special on CBS Sunday night drew a huge audience, giving the network a commanding win in adults 18-49 and households. CBS posted a 9.6 adult 18-49 rating, Fox had a 5.0, ABC a 3.4 and NBC a 2.2, based on preliminary Nielsen ratings. Starting at 9 p.m. the Robert De Niro-hosted special on Sept. 11 drew a colossal 16.3 adult 18-49 rating for its two hours. Rival offerings and typically strong performers like ABC's "The Practice" and NBC's "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" saw their audiences shrink considerably. Before the special, Fox held a strong lead after a 3.5 in adults 18-49 from "Futurama" and "King of the Hill" and a 7.1 from "The Simpsons" and "Malcolm in the Middle." ABC's "Wonderful World of Disney" TV movie "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister" tied for distant second place in the first two hours with CBS's combo of "60 Minutes" and "The Education of Max Bickford." The average household rating and share for Sunday night were: CBS 16.2/25, ABC 6.3/10, Fox 5.8/9, and NBC 4.1/6.

Mrs. Welch: Hit the road, Jack
What a week for Jack Welch: First his girlfriend loses her job, and now his wife is leaving him. The former General Electric chairman married Jane Beasley, his second wife, in 1989. Now Jane Welch has hired a high-powered divorce lawyer who is expected to help her win a big chunk of her unfaithful husband's enormous wealth, according to the New York Daily News. She hasn't said publicly whether Jack's dalliance with Harvard Business Review editor Suzy Wetlaufer led her to pursue a breakup, but it certainly did not help to patch things up. Wetlaufer reportedly told colleagues of her affair with Welch only after Jane threatened to expose it herself. Under pressure from senior staff, Wetlaufer resigned several days ago, but she will be allowed to return to the magazine as an editor at large in an arrangement that caused two top editors to quit in protest. Welch, who was interviewed in the February issue of the magazine, reportedly helped Wetlaufer broker the deal to stay on.

EW's Seymore to run Time4Media?
There's a thin line sometimes between getting fired and getting a promotion, and Entertainment Weekly editor Jim Seymore appears to have crossed it successfully. Time Inc. executives have offered to make Seymore editorial director of Time4Media, the group of specialty and enthusiast magazines that was called Times Mirror Magazines before Time Inc. acquired it in October 2000. The vague offer even leaves open the possibility that Seymore would continue running Entertainment Weekly, as he has done since 1990, according to The Wall Street Journal. It was reported two weeks ago that John Huey, the Time Inc. editorial director who has already replaced the editors of Sports Illustrated and People, was planning to fire Seymore and install a successor from outside the company. Time4Media’s titles include Popular Science, Field & Stream and Golf.

'Sally Jessy Raphael' gets cancelled
Sally Jessy Raphael, she of the red plastic glasses, is signing off. After 18 seasons on the air, Studios USA Domestic Television declined to renew "The Sally Jessy Raphael Show" for another year. The show's viewership has slipped this season to the point where it ranked ninth among syndicated talk shows during the February sweeps with a 1.7 household rating. Rosie O'Donnell is retiring from her talk show in May, while Jenny Jones may not be back for another season unless she gets key pickups in New York and Los Angeles. 

Shareholders try to block RDA acquisition
A shareholder's unexpected power play could nix Reader's Digest Association's hoped-for acquisition of an obscure Midwestern magazine company. RDA chief executive Thomas Ryder has reportedly been trying to strike a deal to buy Reiman Publications, a Wisconsin-based publisher whose 12 titles, while not much known on the coasts, have a combined monthly circulation of 18 million. But Highfields Capital Management, a major RDA shareholder, opposes the acquisition, which could cost up to $800 million, and Highfields recently proposed to buy enough voting shares to give it effective control of the company, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Even if the Highlands takeover bid fails, it could succeed in scuttling the sensitive talks with Reiman. Reiman's magazines, which include Taste of Home and Country, carry no advertising and don't rely on newsstand sales.

Which cable news blowhards blow hardest?
They may be hungry for the truth, or just ego-driven gas bags, but Tucker Carlson of CNN's "Crossfire" and Bill O'Reilly of Fox News's "The O'Reilly Factor" stand out as the premier me-first personalities in cable news. That's according to a new study from PBS's "Newshour with Jim Lehrer" which examined CNN, Fox News and MSNBC from Jan. 21-25, seeking to identify patterns in how newscasts and interviews are conducted. The study, carried out by media analysis organization ADT Research, split interview programs into three parts: debates, one-on-one and panel. Fox News's Bill O'Reilly was found to be the most-opinionated of all one-on-one interviewers, blurting out his take before asking a question 56 percent of the time. Before they had a chance to finish, O'Reilly interrupted guests 44 percent of the time, second only to MSNBC's Ashleigh Banfield. CNN's Keith Olbermann never interrupted a single guest and only offered his opinion 2 percent of the time. In the debate format, CNN's Tucker Carlson gave his opinion 65 percent of the time and interrupted others 54 percent of the time.

March 12, 2002 © 2002 Media Life


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