A female reporter recalls Gulf War
On a chilly morning in January 1991 I climbed into the back of a Marine Corps humvee and set off into the Saudi Arabian desert with six other journalists. The military had told us it would be a two-day “trial…
In Depth
In War, TV Has an Advantage
How do you like the war so far?For a war, it has been very fast; as television it’s been a little slow.But the newspapers are totally flummoxed. They keep looking for something wrong. They are having trouble with technology. Videophones…
Product Spotlight: MediaModeler from Zetools
What It is: MediaModeler is software that manages rich media content and helps create advertising and sponsorship opportunities on station and network Web sites.How It Works: TV Land used MediaModeler for the interactive TV portion of the TV Land awards…
Quick Takes
“History has shown us that good writing is a lot more important than having a big-name star. My favorite sitcom continues to be Everybody Loves Raymond. It’s consistently funny with well-written situations that are all too relatable to our everyday…
Most Watched
Top network show: Academy Awards (ABC): 12.5/30 (Adults 18 to 49) Total viewers: 33.0 million (Week ending March 23)Top cable show: War coverage (FNC) Total viewers: 8,595,000 (Week ending March 23) Top syndicated show: Wheel of Fortune (King World) Total…
Al-Jazeera Feels Heat for Perceived War Bias
An Al-Jazeera cameraman was reported missing 30 kilometers north of Basra, Iraq, late last week, near the site of continuing hostilities between Iraqis and U.S.-led coalition forces, according to Stephanie Thomas, manager of the Qatar-based satellite network’s Washington bureau.This was…
Reality Reaches Plateau
While the latest crop of reality shows have tanked in the ratings, network executives aren’t changing their reality programming plans just yet. They say viewers haven’t cooled to reality-it’s just the process of natural selection where viewers are weeding out…
Networks Bullish at Upfront
This is the year that Discovery Networks will do $500 million in the upfront, compared with last year’s $350 million.That was the buoyant prediction Joe Abruzzese, president, advertising sales, Discovery Networks, made just before Discovery’s upfront presentation, one of two…
Development Update
Advertisers got their first glimpses of the broadcast networks’ fall development plans last week as executives from ABC, Fox, UPN and The WB traveled to New York for pre-upfront meetings with ad agency executives. For the full story, please go…
Scheduling gimmicks may dilute hit shows’ impact
While putting too many reality series on the air at one time can turn off viewers, expanding hit shows by episodes or hours has risks of its own. Everybody remembers how ABC scheduled four nights of its hit game show…