Category — Television

A few months ago Deadline Hollywood posted a memo ABC/Disney sent to it’s show runners asking them to in essence help them copy foreign shows without having to pay for the rights to them. Now FRAPA, the foriegn body responsible for protecting those rights has asked The Walt Disney Company to repudiate that memo. The implied threat is that Disney has a few show ideas of their own (Hannah Montana, High School Musical anyone?) that other producers might want to lift wholesale without having to pay Disney for that priviledge.

That seems like a pretty real threat. I wonder how Disney would respond if the shoe was on the other foot.

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The Los Angeles Times looked into a situation where speculation has been percolating here and there in the media lately: What will Jay Leno do after he is replaced by NBC on The Tonight Show next year and he later becomes free to work for another network? And will he be able to generate a worthwhile audience again after being off the air for months?

One possibility is that the notorious workaholic could end up staying in Burbank - with Disney’s ABC Network. Such a scenario would likely involve changes for the ABC News program Nightline and for Jimmy Kimmel. If that were to happen, perhaps they could get Leno to do something at the Disneyland Resort, too, or something near El Capitan.

So it all comes down to this. Tonight, we finally find out who is The Mole, how he or she did it, and who wins. [Read more →]

Yes, folks. It’s getting to be that time. Time for ABC to start pushing promos for the shows they’re hoping will capture the eyeballs this summer. Here’s the whole lineup in a one minute promo:

What show are you most looking forward to and why?

Here we are at the penultimate episode of The Mole. Mark, Nicole, and Craig are left. One of them is The Mole, and I don’t know who. (Can we just skip ahead to the finale so I can find out? Please?) [Read more →]

Here I am, a day late. Had another ultimate Frisbee game last night. My team was tied when the lights went out. But that was at 10:30 about 45 minutes from home, so you can see why I waited until tonight to watch The Mole. [Read more →]

And now we are down to the final five. Only a few more weeks to go until we’ll know for sure who The Mole is. Personally, I’m just hoping to find a much needed clue or two. One of the contestants with a sign saying “I am The Mole, seriously” might be nice. Then I could discard him or her.

You know what else I noticed. Both Mark and Clay are still in the game. It is interesting that this partnership seems to be working. At least for now. [Read more →]

You may have heard that the other night Jay Leno strongly hinted that since NBC executives were so ready to get rid of him, Leno is ‘retiring’ next year, he might just next be appearing on ABC. Well, ABC hopes he wasn’t just hinting:

“I can’t believe they are going to let this guy go at the top of his game,” McPherson said of Leno. “If that happens, I guess we’ll look at it and we will talk.”

That’s ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson, btw.

I’m actually fairly happy with the way ABC ends its days, 45 minutes of Nightline and then an hour of Jimmy Kimmel is just about right. However, there is no reason that NIghtline couldn’t be moved up to 10pm and then 2 and a half hours of a combined Kimmel and Leno show fill up the rest.

Btw, you know who else would be a great catch to fill in the wee-morning hours… Craig Ferguson. Yeah, that British Scottish chap who was on the Drew Carey show. I watched his Late Late Show on CBS while I had insomnia a few weeks ago and boy was he funny.

Now Where Were We? When last we left The Mole, Kristen had been executed, leaving Nicole and a bunch of men. And, of course, we have our Paul hatred going on. That should make things interesting tonight. [Read more →]

Jeremy Herron, AP Business Writer, reports on the annual retreat in Sun Valley, Idaho, hosted by investment bank Allen & Co.  This is where media and tech execs mingle and make deals.

Even the top Internet companies — save maybe Google Inc. — are seeing revenue growth slowing as online audiences fragment. And they worry that, without steady access to high-quality content, they won’t be able to attract enough viewers to keep growing fast.

At the same time, the barons of old-line newspapers and broadcast TV seem to have realized it’s pointless to keep fighting the shift online, but they’re still unsure how to embrace it. And they’re struggling to attract new online users just to survive.

Meanwhile, Ajay Kamalakaran reports from Bangalore(!) that NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker is looking to spin off or sell some of the company’s assets - something has been been speculated about for what seems like years now.  Although theme parks are almost always considered the stepchildren  in diversified conglomerates that can be easily dropped (Paramount Parks, anyone?), it looks like NBC’s Los Angeles-area assets are being integrated more with Universal Studios Hollywood, where I would think it would be difficult to bifurcate the studio operations and the theme park.  Disney figures in because of some jointly-owned cable channels.