MagneticMediaFed

One year ago I spent the entire upfronts week feverishly clicking my refresh button looking for the latest information on the coming fall television season. What a difference a year makes. After the 100-day writer’s strike left most of the network’s schedules flopping on the dock like a hooked but forgotten flounder, no one (not the advertisers, not the networks, and certainly not the audience) seems particularly thrilled about the network announcements (or lack of announcements) for their future plans. This week is, after all, FOR the advertisers, and since network television is no longer viewed as being all that lucrative those advertising dollars are looking for something more than the typical slate of potential prime-time disasters. Take ABC, for example. The network plans on adding a whopping TWO new programs to its fall prime-time line-up, choosing instead to bring back almost all of it’s fall ‘08 slate (minus, Carpoolers, Cavemen and October Road). But who cares, especially this early in the process? More after the jump…

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So, I’m not entirely sure if I’m supposed to be posting this or not, but it was sent to me by CBS yesterday as promotion for Monday’s episode of How I Met Your Mother, so I guess this is me “promoting.”

Enjoy Sandcastles, a new song from 80s Canadian Pop-Legend Robin Sparkles. A clip from the video is available on her MySpace page.

Check out the show Monday for, presumably, more.

Stunt casting!

Kind of a perfect episode last night on the HIMYM front, no? What worked so well with the Britney stunt-casting was how her roll was so easily replaceable. It worked because she didn’t need to be there and was utterly forgettable. Had things been reversed and she played the Sarah Chalke character it would have been an unmitigated disaster for reasons aside from the fact that she is clearly a horrible actor. Most sitcoms put the guest star front and center. I respect HIMYM for dropping her into the background (to and extent).

But that is not the most interesting thing about Monday’s episode. Clearly the noteworthy addition was the fact that we might have “met the mother.” There were certainly a few clues, the most significant being Stella’s declaration that she “went out on St. Patrick’s Day,” where we, the audience, know the mother happened to be. What is interesting about all of this is the fail-safe the series’ creators have build into the show. As of right now they don’t if they are coming back next season. If Moonves decides to pull the plug in a month or so, all of the groundwork is laid for an easy wrap-up. Now, if things get carried out for another season (or even another two) they are also in great shape because nothing is in stone, it can all just be written off as coincidence.

If you have the time I encourage you to check out Whitney Matheson’s Pop Candy Podcast from two weeks back where she talks with series co-creator Carter Bays about the show’s future and plans on how they hope to reveal “the mother” (with varying degrees of vague response).

You can’t have a sit-com, in this age, about young people living in an apartment. You can try, but people won’t watch it. Whether its last season’s Four Kings, or the dreadful Happy Hour on FOX, there will always be sit-coms produced in this model, but for the foreseeable future they simply won’t stick. Instead, the newer three-camera comedies that are succeeding all seem to be fairly conceptual (they also seem to be on CBS, for some reason). If ‘degree of conceptuality’ is proportional to a shows success with the public, then no series will have a bigger audience this season than CBS’s [natch] new comedy The Class. Here’s the set-up:

A guy throws a party for his fiance. The two of them were in the same third grade class, but met years later and fell in love. His idea is to invite all of his classmates from third grade to the party. About a dozen show up. When his fiance arrives, she’s shocked by his effort, feels smothered, and dumps him in front of all these now-twenty-somethings. We’re left with eight characters who kind of know each other and all the hilarity that these connections can produce.

That’s the show, and dare I say I liked it? A lot*. Keep reading by clicking below…

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When I first moved to New York City I had few possessions. I was sleeping on the floor by night and playing solitaire and listening to internet radio courtesy or an errant wifi signal by day. It was also the dead of winter, and I had no job. I would have killed to have had cable, let alone an actual television in which to watch the cable programming. At the time, my day was spent online going from media outlet to media outlet looking for whatever content had been uploaded for streaming the night before. I watched everything The Daily Show posted (which amounts to most of the good bits from the show), listened to just about every Terry Gross interview of the 21st century (and many of the 20th’s as well), and checked out whatever video-of-the-day was popular at CNN. There was enough content to keep me from going crazy, but hardy enough to stay entertained (that’s why I’d go to Barnes and Noble and read graphic novels without paying for them — devilish!).

Today, things have shifted in favor of the poor-kid with broadband. Even without cable television, there’s enough video online right now to completely pass as a TV junkie, and I’m not just talking about YouTube. There’s more on internet TV (and cartoons) by clicking below…

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I’m listening to a conference call right now with Jeff Probst, host of CBS’s reality-centerpiece Survivor. He’s on the line to address the show’s decision to split the new cast into racial “tribes.” His go-to line, and one I’ve read before, is that this is “the most ethnically diverse cast in the history of reality TV.” This may be true, though I feel like the first few seasons of The Real World would argue otherwise.

As expected, he’s 100% in favor of this decision and is certain it will revive the brand. He also calls out those who may criticize the decision without ever seeing the show– pretty standard responses whenever a show is confronted with controversy.

The series usually picks its contestants from videos mailed in by people who want to be on the show. It just so happens that the type of person who applies for a reality show in this manor is frequently white. Because of this, the casting for the new season was much more aggressive. They went out into the communities and sought out the contestants.

In response to questions about Mark Burnett’s sordid history with diversity and reality programming Probst argued that the apparent stereotypes seen in previous seasons (and shows), might have been caused by the overwhelming white presence these shows have had over the past six years. When there’s only one African-American on a show of sixteen people, anything they do that fits into a stereotype gets magnified.

It should also be noted that while various advertisers have dropped their spots from the show, in recent months (weeks?), Jeff Probst is just the show’s host and really doesn’t know all that much about the CBS balance sheet. Should he? Seems like a lot to ask from the guy.

This thing is now reaching the hour-mark, and I have to go to work. So I’m jumping ship…

I hate James Woods. I hate the snide, know-it-all character he always plays. I hate those devil-eyes of his that seem to shiv your ribs while you watch him screech his way through his roles*. All that being said, when you cast him as blood-sucking, high profile, defense attorney, he’s just about perfect.

In comparison to the just-awful Justice, which covers basically the same kind of “law” (that kind being the high profile anything-for-a-win kind), Shark at least seems to have some sort of conscious about things. Woods plays Sebastian Stark (because y’know, calling him Sebastian “Shark” would just be too silly), a confident defense-attorney who switches sides after a troubling outcome on one of his cases. That’s right! A defense attorney turning the tables on the system!

Everything here is by the numbers, luckily the show doesn’t take itself all that seriously (he has a courtroom built in his basement to practice — he claims to have the bench from “To Kill A Mockingbird” and Ito’s gavel) and thus the hour is mostly a fun time. The series even gives Mr. Stark some plot-lines revolving around his home-life and his daughter giving us a bit more than your typical law-procedural.

This isn’t Perry Mason or Matlock or hell, even Ally McBeal, but it isn’t an entirely unpleasant way to spend a hour on a nondescript Thursday evening.

Shark premieres on CBS Thursday, September 21st at 10:00pm et.

*With the exception being his role as the father in The Virgin Suicides, which I found delightfully understated.

If I’m not mistaken that’s what Harry Shearer said about Katie Couric’s future performance on the CBS Evening News. Well, the time has come and gone, and he appears to be correct– she can read off a screen just like she were one of the boys. I don’t think anyone was tuning into CBS this past evening at 6:30 thinking they’d see anything all too crazy. Ms. Couric wasn’t going to explode a la Scanners. She wasn’t going to stop mid-sentence and pull a Howard Beale (maybe if she’d gotten the Judd Hirsch role in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip). It’d just be the news as usual.

Maybe that was the problem. As someone who earns his paycheck working in broadcast news, I rarely sit down in front of my television to check out the evening news in my free time. If you put a gun to my head and asked me to remember the last time I flipped on any of the big three networks at 6:30pm on a weekday, I’d say, “I’ve lived a full life” and thank you for your time. So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered what most of America all ready knew: the evening news is awful. Keep reading by clicking below…

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CBS, a network that has never been particularly fond of serialized drama, is trotting out a few of them this fall (fifty million Lost, Desperate Housewives, and Grey’s Anatomy viewers can’t be wrong!). Jericho is their response to Lost. It’s about a small town in Kansas (the type of small town where kids on a school bus actually sing “Old McDonald”) that seems to survive a national nuclear attack. Now, the towns residents are trapped and have to figure out what they’re going to do. Yeah, it’s a lot like Lost. Except in the ways it should be. For a pilot episode involving nuclear explosions, Jericho is painfully slow, and rarely exciting. By comparison (and in cases like this, comparisons must be made), the Lost pilot was unrelenting (and it happened to be two hours long). Sure, its budget ballooned to well over a hundred-million 10-14 million* dollars, but every cent was on the screen. Jericho seems hesitant on showing the viewer anything– though you do get to see a man give a girl a tracheotomy with a knife and some plastic straws but when DON’T you get to see that? Am I right people?

There are some interesting casting choices. Skeet Ulrich, the poor-man’s Johnny Depp, has the lead as a mysterious loner. His father is the mayor of the town and played by Gerald McRaney, (Major Dad) who was remarkable as George Hearst this past summer in Deadwood. Also, Shoshannah Stern from Weeds is present as one of the locals (and seems to be as lovely here as she was there). Of course, none of this matters when the actors aren’t given anything to work with.

Jericho is a decent premise, but that only gets you so far. Lost had everything going for it: the writing, the cast, the money, and especially the drama. Jericho fails because for a show based on mystery, it couldn’t seem less mysterious.

Jericho begins Wednesday, September 20th, at 8:00pm ET on CBS.

*I’ve had the $100-million tag in my head since the show launched (or at least since I finished reading Desperate Networks, Bill Carters jumbled but fascinating look at the past four years of network television). How could I have been so far off the mark? I went back to Carter’s book and looked for the answer, but all I could find was “$12 million” everywhere I looked. The closest was the $100-million that ABC owed in make-good ads. Either way, MagneticMediaFed regrets the error.

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CBS released this awesome photo of the cast for Survivor’s thirteenth (!!) season. If you look closely you’ll notice that it isn’t as “white” as the cast usually is. There’s a reason for this. Initially the 20 castaways will be divided into “ethnic teams.” That’s right, there will be a team of Asians, a team of Hispanics, a team of African Americans, and a team full of crackers Caucasians.

As the teams get widdled down there will be some integration, as in seasons past. Needless to say, Survivor just got a whole lot more awkward.

I’ve never watched much of the show, so it really isn’t my place to make too many comments, though I do think this decision is interesting given how a lot of the web-chatter has been about producer Mark Burnett’s lousy track record with casting minorites on his non-The Contender series.

Thoughts?

Photo courtesy CBS

Today CBS issued a press release saying that it would be airing several episodes of new and returning programs on the internet for free through their InnerTube video service. The online shows will be streamed and have commercials embedded that cannot be skipped (though considerably fewer commercials than when the shows air on television). ABC began offering more or less the same system last spring via their website. Both network’s only offer a handful of shows to be featured in their entirety. NBC and FOX have yet to put anything comparable on the table (though NBC did strike a deal with YouTube recently, which has yet to produce anything of note).

I really like this model, though I can imagine its driving the affiliates crazy. They need the networks to survive. The opposite used to be true, but now that there is iTunes (whose video impact has yet to be measured), and these new programs that give viewers what they want (whole shows) and keep the finance department happy (unskippable advertising) the local affiliate is becoming less and less important in that happy circle of broadcast television life.

The big problem, as I see it, is that the type of people who don’t have a problem watching video online (people like me), aren’t going to be using these services to get new content. If I want to see the new Lost, then by-God I’m going to see the new Lost when it airs (or DVR it, or anything that will let me watch it as soon as possible with the fewest distractions). The rest of the television populace doesn’t care. Casual viewers aren’t going to seek out a website so they can see a new show glorious, grainy, streamed video. So where’s the win/win? Click below and I’ll tell you…

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Last week was the lowest rated week for television in recorded history. The four main networks (ABC, NBC, CBS & FOX) totalled just over 20 million viewers for the entire week.

Maybe its because of the July 4th Holiday, or that all the cool new shows are on cable, or maybe– just maybe– because IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE GOD DAMNED SUMMER! Go outside people, I’ll do the heavy lifting for you.

Is it that time of year again? Yes. The nominations for the 2006 Primetime Emmy Awards came out this morning. There has been much discussion about recent rules changes in the nominating process. The idea is that the old system catered to a specific group of “premeire” shows. The new rules are suppose to broaden the field a bit. This years nominations, while hardly shocking in their limited scope seem to suggest the “new rules” might have been lost in the mail, despite many a high profile show being snubbed completely. The nominations and my picks for winning are right after the jump…

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The Tony awards were held this past Sunday at Radio City Music Hall and brought in 7.8 million viewers for CBS (up 20% from last year). These numbers were likely padded thanks to the help of Julia Roberts who starred this year in “Three Days Of Rain” and Oprah who produced “The Color Purple” (both presented at the show).

That explains this year’s numbers, but overall, why on earth are the Tony awards even broadcast on CBS? There are scores of award shows broadcast every year, and each of those shows has a built in audience. Country fans will turn into their award show to see their favorite performers, television fans turn into the Emmys, etc. Plus, those audiences can translate nationally. Everyone in the country watching about the same television or listens to the same music. The problem with the Tonys is that its an award show based on Broadway plays and musicals. This means the only possible people it could attract are New Yorkers and theater-junkies (or star-gawkers, but even then we’re talking about the stars of the theater world, not films or tv).

I’m simply amazed that CBS feels no risk in putting this event on every year. Perhaps the Tony audience is more affluent and they can charge more for the ads. One would think it might find more success on a cable channel like Bravo or A&E. Of course, ratings were up this year, so maybe I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.

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First of all, I do read books. I’ve read many books. Some, in fact, aren’t even about television. Last week I finally got around to reading Bill Carter’s The Late Shift. Why I hadn’t read this book is a mystery to me as “Late Night” shows are one of my favorite kinds of programming– they’re, in a way, the last remaining installations of television’s golden era.

The Late Shift is a really good read, but its especially interesting a dozen years after the fact. Knowing the after-effects of this late-night-battle makes for a delightful bit of history-via-Miss Cleo. Also interesting was finishing up Carter’s book right around the same time I heard this fascinating follow-up to a recurring story on WNYC’s “On the Media” detailing what Bob Garfield refers to as his “Television Chaos Theory.” These seemingly unrelated areas, “Absolte Chaos” and “Late Night,” might not be all that far apart. Their inevitable collision could equate to CERTAIN DISASTER (a gorey tragedy for those who take television history a least half seriously, though great fodder for television and technology bloggers). Keep reading after the jump…

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