Moraes on TV

"Oprah" to cable in 2011 -- here we go again!

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:18:31 -0500

Nearly one year to the day after Discovery Communications' top dog said Oprah Winfrey would stop syndicating her talk show in September of 2011 and move it to Discovery's new Oprah Winfrey Network, a blog report saying Oprah will stop syndicating her talk show in September of 2011 and move it to OWN gave The Reporters Who Cover Television the vapors. "She has not made a decision yet," Winfrey's Harpo Productions said Thursday in a stern e-mail to hyperventilating reporters. "As she has previously stated, she'll be making an announcement before the end of the year." That statement is virtually identical to the scolding Harpo issued within hours of Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav's crack about Oprah moving her talkshow to OWN -- a comment he made at his company's first earnings call as a public company back in early November of '08. Back then Harpo said, patronizingly, that "while

GOP gains; Fox News Channel wins

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:24:44 -0500

An off-year election night the GOP is touting as the launch of a "Republican renaissance" delivered a decisive primetime ratings win for Fox News Channel too. After three years of Democratic wins, Republicans captured the governorships in New Jersey and Virginia -- two states President Obama won last year. This prompted GOP chairman Michael S. Steele, the Post reported, to deliver the "Republican renaissance" line. Meanwhile, Fox News Channel, which one year ago had its head handed to it by CNN on election night, was dancing the Comeback Dance -- the network having scored nearly twice as many viewers as CNN, MSNBC and HLN -- combined. FNC averaged more than 4 million viewers in primetime Tuesday. That's 84 percent more people than the cable network has averaged in primetime so far this calendar year. The NewsCorp-owned network thumped NBC Universal's MSNBC, which attracted 974,000 people to its election coverage in

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Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:24:44 -0500

MTV pulls DJ AM series from primetime

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:06:31 -0500

MTV has yanked its deceased-DJ intervention series "Gone Too Far" from its primetime schedule after it died in the ratings. The reality series has been moved to Thursdays at 11 p.m., starting this week. Only three of the eight episodes ordered ran in primetime, when the number of Homes Using Television is much higher than other dayparts. But its chance for survival in primetime pretty much evaporated when its much ballyhooed premiere only attracted half a million viewers. Things looked slightly less dismal the second week -- episode No. 2 attracted about 700,000 people. But last week's third third episode fell back down to under half a million. "Gone Too Far" features young drug addicts who are shown using and talking about their drug of choice. Celebrity DJ Adam Goldstein -- aka DJ AM -- headlined the show and is featured in each episode, dispensing tough love to the addicts

Aliens land; 14 million watch

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:31:11 -0500

More than 14 million people watched the unveiling of ABC's controversial "V" do-over, making it the second biggest new-series opening of the two-month-old 2009-10 TV season. CBS's "NCIS" spinoff, "NCIS: Los Angeles" is still the ratings champ, having attracted 19 million viewers to its premiere episode in September. But "V" squeaked by CBS's new "The Good Wife" to take second place among new-show premieres, according to national stats. The Julianna Margulies lawyer drama had opened earlier in the season to an audience of just under 14 million people. In its ratings report, ABC focused instead on the 6.8 million people between the ages of 18 and 49 who watched the first episode of its new sci-fi series at 8 p.m. Tuesday - a ratings performance the network characterized as "soaring" above the 5.6 million in that age bracket who instead chose to watch the sixth episode of the seventh

Kirstie Alley to perform weight-loss encore

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:45:42 -0500

Kirstie Alley returning to the small screen to lose more weight for our entertainment. In case you did not get the memo: Fat is the new singing competition; fat is the new dance derby. Seems like every TV network wants a reality series about people trying to lose weight. Some of the hefty stars are old hands at this. Like Alley, whose new A&E show will chronicle her efforts to not only shed the pounds, but launch her own weight-loss program. The series, which does not yet have a name, is not to be confused with Alley's 2005 Showtime series "Fat Actress" - a barely scripted series in which she played, well, herself. In this new series, Kirstie will also be seen raising two "normal Hollywood children" (oxymoron alert!) and eight ringtail lemurs, and looking for love. Kirstie will have stiff competition in the form of made-for-TV weight loss veteran

Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin to share Oscar hosting gig

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:54:42 -0500

NBC has won the latest round of trophy-show one-upmanship it had been waging against ABC, when the motion picture academy announced late Tuesday that Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin would co-host the 82nd Academy Awards. No, NBC is not broadcasting the Academy Awards -- ABC is, on March 7. NBC airs the Globes, on Jan 17. And yes, the Baldwin/Martin-hosted Oscars on ABC will probably, like other years, clock nearly twice as many viewers as the Golden Globes (though the Globes broadcast is no slouch with its 20million-ish viewers, often beating the Primetime Emmy Awards and usually rivaling the viewership of the Grammy Awards). But in addition to co-hosting the Oscars, Martin and Baldwin are co-starring in an upcoming movie called "It's Complicated" that's coming out Christmas Day, so the Oscar show will be one big, fat wet kiss to that new movie -- and that kiss will be seen

Levi teases when "Insider" begs for Palin dirt

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:59:03 -0500

*Syndicated celebrity suck-up show "The Insider" continued its new format in which a panel of celebrity talkers grills some dumb cluck in the news. A couple weeks ago, the show snagged Jon Gosselin, who got disemboweled by CNN talking head Nancy Grace. Good times. This week, the Big Get is Levi Johnston, aka Sarah Palin's grandbaby-Daddy. Guest grillers include comic Kathy Griffin and former "The View" star, um, Star Jones. Johnston's been on a tear lately, telling most anyone who will listen that he's got a lot of dirt on the former Alaska Governor, which he's willing to share. "Can Levi Johnston destroy Sarah Palin's career?" "Insider" correspondent Chris Jacobs faux-wonders at the top of the show. "Levi is ready to answer all the questions" says host Lara Spencer, introducing Johnston as "the young man who may be trying to take down the woman some way wants to be our

President Obama inspires new Vh1 reality series. Seriously.

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:57:25 -0500

Vh1 network says President Barack Obama inspired them to pick up a new reality series in which a bunch of slacker guys who have fathered children are put through a crash course in responsibility. No, it just seems like a "Saturday Night Live" skit. "Obama put that out there, and then ["Biggest Loser" production company] 3Ball came in and pitched this," Vh1 programming chief Jeff Olde told the trade paper The Hollywood Reporter. (We think he was referring to Obama's speeches in which he has talked about the importance of men being fathers to their children.) Anyway, the exec likened the new show, called "Dad Camp," to his network's guy-makeover series "Tool Academy" -- except "Dad Camp," he said, will have "more textures." "Tool Academy" is, according to WaPo TeamTV's "Tool Academy" correspondent Emily Yahr, a series in which chicks "nominate their boyfriends who are total tools, to go

Happy Halloween from NBC News

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:29:29 -0500

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ABC kills "V" skywriting stunt

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:50:11 -0500

ABC has scrubbed its plan to festoon the skies over the country's major landmarks with giant red "V"s to promote the Nov. 3 debut of its alien invasion drama coincidentally called "V." Last week, the network announced it would deploy skywriting planes above 26 landmarks - Statue of Liberty, Santa Monica Pier, blah, blah, blah - in 15 cities over 12 days - all to promote a four-day sampling of the science-fiction series which ABC then plans to take off the air and return early next calendar year. "V," which is debuting on the one-year anniversary of President Obama's election, is about a bunch of good-looking, charismatic aliens who come to earth and promise to show us the way to "Hope," "Change" and universal health care, but who turn out to be ugly lizard-people who want to infiltrate our government and have rallied the country's youth behind their nefarious

Fox trolls for new Seth MacFarlane show sugardaddy

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:06:17 -0500

While Poor Little Fox is now out on the street looking for another corporate sponsor to pay for its upcoming Seth MacFarlane comedy special, the TV watchdog group Parents Television Council on Tuesday twirled its moustache and threatened that any advertiser stepping in to save Poor Little Fox would pay a heavy price. Fox's troubles started last weekend when Microsoft suits woke up and realized that a Seth MacFarlane comedy special would feature Seth MacFarlane comedy. Seth -- the creator behind of "Family Guy," "American Dad" and "The Cleveland Show-- hails from the school that believes we have not even begun to tap the wellspring of comedy to be had from the subject of feminine hygiene. And he's never met a Holocaust joke he didn't like. Even so, a few weeks ago, Microsoft and Fox had joined hands and announced that Microsoft's new Windows 7 would be the exclusive

Palin's grandbaby dad: "I'm going to leak some things on her."

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:07:57 -0500

The father of Sarah Palin's grandson "says he doesn't want to hurt Sarah Palin but he knows some things that could do just that," CBS News gushed Tuesday morning by way of plugging Wednesday's "exclusive" interview with Levi Johnston on "The Early Show." Want more? We've got it, compliments of CBS: "The Early Show's" Maggie Rodriguez asked Johnston about Palin's new book. Which, BTW, Palin herself will plug on the Nov. 16 episode of Oprah Winfrey's syndicated talk show -- which, in one of those extraordinary coincidences, is distributed by -- CBS! "Sounds like you really resent her now," she asks Levi during the interview, which was taped in advance. "Well now I've heard all the things she's said. You know, the Sarah Palin I knew before, it was -- it was her putting on a front, it was her being fake to me and now that everything's slowly coming

Ricky Gervais to host NBC's "Golden Globe" show

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:10:15 -0500

Six days after the motion picture academy announced it had signed "Hairspray" director (and "So You Think You Can Dance" judge) Adam Shankman to co-produce the next Academy Awards ceremony, which always airs on ABC, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association responded by announcing it had signed Ricky Gervais to host the next Golden Globe Awards, which for some time now has aired on NBC. Ricky Gervais (AP) The HFPA and NBC won that round, for sure. It's the Globes's first host since 1995. Gervais, BTW, is an exec producer of NBC's "The Office" because he created and starred in the original, British version. NBC's head of alternative programming Paul Telegdy, said Monday that Gervais is "certainly one of the funniest people on the planet and has provided some of the most hilarious and memorable awards-show moments in recent history." Both true. And yet, if you expected Monday's announcement to have

DeLay finds another "reality" with ABC

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:37:32 -0500

NBC finally found the right reality show for ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. And ABC has finally found the right "reality" for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. ABC originally cast DeLay in "Dancing with the Stars," only he fractured both his feet during rehearsal and had to bow out of the competition though, sadly, not before dancing the cha cha to The Troggs' "Wild Thing," ruining that tune for us forever. On Friday, Disney-ABC Domestic Television announced they'd found another reality-TV home for DeLay. He will sit in as the "Expert" in the "Ask the Expert" lifeline for episodes of the syndicated show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" airing all next week, Oct. 26-30. Contestants who have correctly answered the $5,000 question can ask to be connected to a pre-determined "expert" via Skype. DeLay will appear from Los Angeles in the episodes. He told contestants ahead of time

Fat is the new black on primetime TV

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:31:25 -0500

Contrary to popular belief, you do not need to stuff your child into the garage attic and phone 911 claiming the child is a stow-away in a runaway helium-filled weather balloon in order to get a primetime reality series these days. You just need to be obese. "Fat" is all the rage these days in the world of reality TV. Fat is the new singing competition. Fat is the new dance derby. ABC has greenlit a reality series called "Obese" which will feature people who have become so overweight they can no longer squeeze into an airplane seat, tie their shoes, etc. More aspirational than NBC's reality series "The Biggest Loser," there will be no competition and no one will get booted each week. This show is very simple: each lucky person picked will be given a personal trainer and will be documented becoming half the person they were over