Breaking down the haves – and have-nots – from the past week:
Winners
– V. The new version of the 1983 mini-series and 1984-85 television series drew 14 million viewers and a 4.9 rating in the 18-49 demo for ABC last Tuesday night. Will it hold up? We shall see.
– Fox. Game 6 of the Yankees’ World Series clincher drew 21 million viewers. Now if they can only keep them through the rest of the season when Idol’s not around.
– Dr. Phil, Jerry Springer, and trash TV talk show fans everywhere. No word on if Oprah plans to move her show to her cable network, but no such drama for fans of trash TV: NBC Universal (Jerry Springer, Maury, Steve Wilkos) and CBS Television Distribution (Dr. Phil) locked up their controversial talkers through 2012 and 2014, respectively.
– The Museum of Broadcast Communications …and radio & TV fans everywhere! MBC founder Bruce DuMont announced at the Radio Hall of Fame dinner Saturday Night that he secured $6 million in funding to complete construction of the new building located at State and Kinzie located in the North Loop. The project was suspended when money allocated for the project was lost in the Blagojevich scandals. Yours truly will be first in line when it opens! (It shouldn’t be too hard – I work right across the street.)
Losers
– The Chicago Bears. The loss yesterday to Arizona pretty much says it all.
– FlashForward. Speaking of disappointments, there is a lot of negative reaction on internet message boards regarding this show (lack of character development, slow advancement of the plot, etc.) And this as ratings continue to fall. It seems fans are discovering flaws in the show and its not meeting expectations (see above.) To paraphrase Dennis Green, FlashForward isn’t who we thought they were (see above.)
Next week, look for the show to add Lovie Smith to the cast as a FBI agent who somehow bungles the FlashForward investigation. His conclusion to why the world blacked out for nearly three minutes? It was Tommie Harris’ fault.
– The Parents Television Council protests Gossip Girl episode Threesome. And no one cares about neither.
– Talk of Christmas Music – while it’s 70 degrees outside. Yours truly wore short-sleeve shirts this weekend – who’s thinking about Christmas? When the temperature drops by half, we’ll talk.
Comments are closed.
For once, I agree with the opponents of this move. Not becsuae I don’t want to see some amount of foreign entry in the press, but becsuae it does seem like it’s being rushed. Why push such an important change through sneakily without even allowing the Parliament to discuss on it?I’m also surprised to learn that US also has restrictions on foreign entry in their press!The press and media in general have now become sole channels of certain parties. For example, see how Fox News is very pro-Republican. So, it’s not unwise to assume that this can happen at a national level too the Indian edition of an American publication might take a softer line on news that reflects badly on its home country. The counter-agrument for that would be that Indian citizens are already open to such views through foreign TV channels and the big wide Internet. And they seem to be doing all right.What I didn’t get was how does foreign entry curb the media’s freedom of expression? Are they referring to the possibility that the foreign paymasters might prevent certain kind of news from being reported?
Agreed.