First night of sweeps; let the spin begin

Here is how two networks are spinning the first night of the May sweeps (which was thurs.):
Says ABC:
ABC Tallies its First Opening Night Adult 18-49 Victory
During Any May Sweep Period in More Than 15 Years

Growing Week to Week in Viewers and Young Adults, ABC’s
“Ugly Betty” Ranks a Strong No. 1 in its Hour with Women 18-34

The No. 1 TV Program on Thursday, “Grey’s Anatomy” Wins the
9 O’clock Hour by Wide Margins Across All Key Adult Demographics

For the Second Week in a Row, ABC’s “October Road” Season Finale Wins its
Time-Slot in Adults 18-49, Beating Originals of CBS’ “Shark” and NBC’s “ER”

Says CBS:
"CSI" TOPS "GREY'S ANATOMY" IN VIEWERS

"Shark" Wins its Time Period in Viewers

"Survivor: Fiji" Places First in Viewers and Key Demos

CBS Wins the First Night of the May Sweep in Viewers and Adults 25-54


So this is why I don't do much on demos, even though (or because) stations and networks use them to make money. It's all just commerce. What you can learn from these claims is this: CSI and Grey's attract a lot of viewers, but "Grey's" are younger and more female (I don't know how any man can watch this soap). "October Road" looks like it will be renewed. "Shark" is doing well. "Ugly Betty" has done very well (with Guilford's Becki Newton). It also looks great in HDTV, I might add (all the pretty colors). CBS has an older audience but it's better than it used to be. We used to say that the average age of the CBS audience was dead. Now it's around 45 or so. One last thing: ABC says "Grey's" is "No. 1 on Thursdays" and CBS says CSI tops Grey's in viewers. Interesting, unless ABC means "No. 1" in a demo we care about.

Oh, my. Inappropriately funny landlord.

http://sjl.funnyordie.com/v1/landing.php

Looks Like a Good "Office" Thursday

Ed Helms, left, sets a young woman straight in Thursday's "Office" episode on NBC. This one could be very funny, as
a high school has issued prom invitations on Dunder-Mifflin paper accidentally watermarked with an obscene image.

NBC's decision to run Cho video

Good job by WPLR's Chaz and AJ (and Megan) on this issue Wed. morning, by the way.
On the release of the VT nutjob's video:
NBC says the release of 2-plus minutes of this rambling lunacy footage from the killer ADVANCED the story, since we wanted to know why he did it and what he was doing during the time between shootings. Here's my take: Any of the networks or local stations, including ABC which led its newscast with a story about NBC showing the video, would have run a chunk of the video footage.
The unwritten rule is, if you have compelling video, it gets shown. Period. I don't agree with this, even though I understand the journalistic urge to cover what people care about.
But the market pressure (ratings and the nature of television, which is built around such visuals) absolutely DEMANDS the stations/networks show a goodly portion of this video. It would be like a chatty high schooler who comes upon a dark secret piece of gossip: The odds against such dirt staying discreet are astronomical.
OF COURSE NBC was going to show the footage; it's the video, stupid! (God I hate that Clintonian-era reference.)
The more noble solution for NBC would have been to show maybe seven seconds (an enternity when it comes to such footage) of the guy rambling and pointing his gun, and then explain calmly to the public that NBC would responsibly show no more of the lunatic's garbage.
The danger in showing more of it is in other disturbed people finding motivation to go out in such a blaze of media-soaked infamy.

TV Ratings system and V chip don't work.

http://www.parentstv.org/ptc/publications/reports/ratingsstudy/exsummary.asp

In addition, the technology is not workable on a family set. The V-chip was doomed from the start for similar reasons. I agree with the PTC that if parents had control of cable channel choice, they could avoid channels such as FX or MTV that churn out adult material.

Top 10 list from CBS

[As presented by Sanjaya Malakar, the most recent contestant voted off “American Idol,” on the April 23 broadcast of the LATE SHOW with DAVID LETTERMAN:

"Things I Learned from ‘American Idol’"

10. The camera adds ten pounds to your mohawk.

9. Work hard and make sacrifices, you can finish in 7th place.

8. It’s very important to “Keep it real, dawg.”

7. I should have gone for the immunity idol – oh wait, that’s “Survivor.”

6. On-camera Simon is a bit nasty, but off-camera, he’s a total jerk.

5. Voting for yourself 100 times an hour causes some wicked carpal tunnel.

4. When you forget the words, just do this.
(Sanjaya belts out a riff like“Ohhhhhhhh”)

3. Honestly, I thought I was auditioning for “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?”

2. Nothing.

1. America loves performers with bad hair – right, Dave?

24 has entered Goofyland

It happens most years. With the budding of spring's trees the Fox rollercoaster ride called "24" leaves its compelling track and skids into fantasyland, stupidville, dopeycity, crazyhaus. The whole Chinese subplot just keeps getting dumber. Logic failed last night when Karen Hayes agreed that she must fire her husband; in real life the accusations of letting a terrorist go free would have taken months or years and still not resulted in much (witness the claims that Clinton should have taken out certain terrorists when he had the chance). Audrey Raines looks as confused and shellshocked as viewers. That was a decent scene between the VP and Tom Lennox about trust and leverage. I rank this season slightly behind last year and (my favorite) the year before that.

Starting pitching would be nice

Yankees fans can take heart that despite losing three straight to the Red Sox, there were some hopeful signs. Dice-K: Six runs given up. We'll see what happens during the next showdown. In the Bronx. There's a lot of criticism of Torre taking out Pettite in game one, not protecting the line late in a game and overusing the bullpen. Joe needs to use his cellphone to talk to Zimmer during the games.

Song from the Sixties.

I can't remember people's names at times, or other stuff I'd like to recall easily. But I can remember the words to my grade-school song. We boys never let anyone see us singing but it was a tune seared into our memories:
St. Bernadette's, we pledge our hearts, forever to be true.
For all the things you stand for, your colors white and blue.
The friends we made while we were here
Will last a whole life through
To the faculty and our school
We pledge our hearts to you.

The reason I mention this is that the school's 50th anniversary gala will be May 4 at the Lighthouse Carousel. Tickets are $100 and can be reserved by e-mailing marcella@mascola.com. Proceeds of the event and silent auction will benefit the Golden Opportunity Endowment Fund.

St. Bernadette's was a good school, for me and my sister and brothers and for the likes of my classmates, such as Mayor John DeStefano and my buddies Tom Capobianco, Billy Scialabba, the Pagano twins, Billy Farrell and Ralph Alfano and Gary Stegina. Others didn't make it to the end, and we learned some hard lessons in growing up from them. The girls? I won't name them here but they were the best kids you'd want to meet. Maybe that's nostalgia talking, but it's probably the way to remember those years, a tumultuous time in our country.
Here's to you, SBS.

Change in the TV Channels listing guide

A number of you have been calling and writing about the new size of the TV Channels listings section in the Register. We hear your complaints but I'm sure much of it is due to the simple fact it is changed. Some of you have said you can't find it. It's a tabloid size that wraps over the other inserts. If you fold it in half it will be the same size as the old book. Some of you have said the size of the type is smaller. Actually, it's bigger type and bolder. So I'm hoping people can get used to it. Corporate managers ordered us to change it to that size. I don't argue with my bosses.

This is my new blog photo

at my daughter's wedding. Not that anyone should care. But I need to upload the pic here so I can put it into the template. And here's another new one I'll be using, for the same reason. It was at my son's high school graduation a couple of years ago.

To go with Sunday column in Register

Sunday I talk about vacation-week travel to Floriday, and some experiences and tips. Here is a view of Ft. Myers Beach, which we visited in February. The public boardwalk-business plaza near the pier is pretty nice and we had a good meal at Pete's Time Out (motto: Brew Chew View), eating outdoors on the plaza. Nearby, you get a street performer or two, including the guy pictured here all in gold. He frightened my daughter when he made a quick move toward her and her girlfriend. But it was funny. Above is a look at an acual beach scene and below a shot inside Epcot Center where some folks I know were consulting their map.

Imus fired. Now WFAN will get really dumb in the AM

CBS has canned Imus. Now undersand that he can probably go to satellite radio very soon if he chooses. The Imus affair brought some interesting ideas into the national discussion:
Race is still a problem in America.
There's plenty of animosity toward Sharpton and Jackson (see previous blog comments).
Rap's purveyors have a piece of the blame in this, since the Imus group was repeating terms common in that lexicon.
Good thing: This lets people know the culture can and will draw the line at hateful speech. There is a line on racial intolerance that even humor can't cross. (If it's bad humor especially.)
The anatomy of the offensive joke is thus: Rap's black artists have a preoccupation with misogynistic lyrics, which has proved lurcative, so it's funny when those words are said by old white guys. It's been funny for its shock and timing before, but it was unfunny and insulting this time.
Special interests all jumped in to push their own causes. The Parents Television Council, before MSNBC dropped the show, pointed out that we all subsidize offensive cable channels because there's no a la carte choice. The cable news channels had a simple, hot-button story they could ride. Sharpton could play his well-worn race card (even though he bungled the Duke situation by grandstanding). Author Lauren Powers said the remark was an example of statements coming out of the subconscious "rat brain" that she talks about in her book.
The coarseness of our culture continues, but you get a free pass if you're on cable (where people do technically pay to be offended).
WFAN will choose a show far more annoying and less informative than Imus. Another media giant has fallen (by his own hands, of course). But probably only temporarily.
My old pal Rich Hanley, a Quinnipiac prof and media expert, pointed out the irony of NBC pulling Imus from MSNBC: "The lyrics to some of the material recorded by the rap act 50 Cent are impossibly cruel in their intention to do violence to women yet he has appeared more than once on NBC Universal’s 'Saturday Night Live' program. To date, the news media have yet to question NBC Universal officials on whether they plan to ban such acts from their air in the future."
Given the abundant apologies of Imus, I think the firing by Les Moonves is hypocritical. At a press conference I once attended, Moonves was asked if he let his preteen daughter watch the racy "Friends" that he had helped popularize at Warner Bros. "Of course," I recall he said as if 10-year-olds should view sexed-up material, and right then I knew he was a lyin' weasel. (That's my homage to the outgoing shock-jock.)

Speaking of rap music and this time of year...

A column I wrote in 2002:

Rap isn't about white or black;it's green, yo

Yo, homie, check it out: Last week I be chillin' behind my crib wit my hoe, some weed and a 40, lookin' to bust some slugs, and ...
Oh, wait. First I should explain. I've decided that - like Barbara Billingsley in "Airplane" - I speak jive (or its present-day incarnations called "hip-hop" or "rap"). In fact, I've decided to do today's column in the vernacular that has become so popular that it is the dominant format on 150 radio stations nationwide (compared to just six stations less than a decade ago).
There's a rapper named Ja Rule (my initials), but coming from a humble place in New Haven, I'm thinking of calling myself Cid-rule (Italian slang meaning "dumb like a cucumber").
Let me be clear here: I loathe rap. It's not only a parasitic and repetitive genre but its few works of artistry are dwarfed by the creeps who give it heat.
For every hard-working member of the recording industry it supports, it also furthers a violent, degrading and drugged-out culture that pimps out its young and talented. For every person it lifts out of poverty, it leaves millions of fans behind - looking ludicrous, angry, dated and less useful to society than a cable TV CEO. (That was harsh.)
Don't take my word for it. Check out the lyrics for rapper Ludacris (rap rule No. 1: never spell it right) or P Diddy or Eminem. The misogynistic words and ideas flow freely, and today they're making their way into the AOL Instant Messenger conversations of 8- to 12-year-old girls.
The nonprofit group Mediascope notes that "Music lyrics have also become increasingly explicit in the past two decades." One rap track these days contains more foul language than appeared in 50 YEARS of TV and radio before 1995. Chain-owned radio stations entice kids into the "hip-hop" tent with somewhat-sanitized versions of songs; then the kids buy or download the hard-core versions for their MP3 players or CD burners. Then a hideously big car stereo shakes your house like a thunderstorm spewing F-words.
If you consult a rap dictionary, as I did, and you take out all the words referring to illicit drugs, sex acts, female body parts, evil women and gun violence, you're only left with the words "yo" and "MC Hammer" (ba-doom). But I decided nonetheless today to use some rap lingo to talk about something that really should be part of your hip-hop lifestyle... gardening.
Word up? Why rap about the slim and sorta shady turf behind my crib in the suburban hood? Because the outdoors are "all that." I don't like to be "in the house" during the summer. No diggety.
To quote that amusing but mother-dissing little example of white trash known as Eminem, "Now this looks like a job for me, so everybody just follow me, cuz we need a little controversy, cuz it feels so empty without me" ... rapping about my garden.
Many of you "get your swerve on" with tomato plants. All the old lovers of the love-fruit say, "There's nothing like that first fresh tomato of the season," and you go, "Word, homie. It's all about the flava. Fresh flesh. But how do you get such a "phat" tomata?"
Well, G, you need to cop some sturdy bedding plants, "pull a piece" or three of weeds out of the way, and stake those thangs so they're not laying all over the ground like a bad poser's low-rider. (Wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa wa...)
Public Enemy No. 1? In my garden for years it was the woodchuck gang, which would dis me by boosting all my young bean plants, lettuce and peas. Now I am really anti-gatt, but I was so wacked by these gangsta critters that I wanted to take a lawn cart on a drive-by. You know, bust a cap in that critter's furry biskit. (Instead I just threw a rock and screamed in a high voice.)
But late last year I trapped the last of the street's woodchucks and took it to a hood so rich they actually make all the payments on their Lexus wheels. Smaller pests are laying low, too, so we're nearly organic in this veggie-booty hunt - except for a dusting of "white powder" on the zucchini plants (rotenone, fool!).
We make a "fly" zucchini bread in my crib. It's moist to the max; you can bake the stuff in muffin caps. Just don't undercook it or you'll have a limp biscuit. (Scratch some vinyl for me on that one.) We be potatoes and stakin' tomatoes; pole beans next to the collard greens (actually Swiss chard but that busts the rhyme).
Sheesh, I think it's time to retire as a rapper. As for my opening paragraph: If you're hoeing out weeds from your garden and you notice a slug problem, take a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor, pour a little in a can at surface level and watch the slugs dive in like suburban folks at a Dunkin' Donuts. Save the rest of the bottle; you'll need something to drink with all those vegetables.

Imus should not be fired

OK, most of the folks I know think Don Imus should be fired for what he said. But here's some reasons a suspension and humiliation is probably enough for now.
The climate of edgy material on TV and radio is very harsh and edgy in pursuit of a laugh. "Hip-hop" music says things that are as bad or worse all the time. People knock Christians, shy people, virgins and overweight people at will. If you put up with constant F-bombs on pay cable, which offend me, how do you turn around and fire someone on radio for saying something stupid and hurtful? I'm shocked by stuff on cable TV but no one's muzzling FX.
Imus is an icon, a symbol of another era of radio. There's a place for crankiness in the media (see "House") as long as it isn't hateful (this incident notwithstanding).
Imus is a jerk at times but I don't think he's a racist. He has apologized and he has raised a lot of money for charity and sick kids.
Imus has said that if it were white people stranded by Katrina, the government would have helped them sooner.
I'm equally offended by the world-wrecking daily rants of Rush Limbaugh, who has helped prop up the worst president in 100 years.
And the biggest, selfish reason: If WFAN replaces Imus, it will be with a show so bad that it will make Mike and the Mad Dog look like McNeil-Lehrer.

As for the African-American who commented here, I agree: The Madison Ave.-Hollywood overemphasis on images of thin, blonde, white Barbie beauty is a terrible thing for youngsters, of all races and shapes. But let's take heart: high-definition TV makes the overly thin and pale look pretty unhealthy.

Top 10 list from CBS on the Masters (& ratings)

Now that I have HDTV, I've watched more golf than ever. Watching golf reminds me of that old "Star Trek" episode where the species had unfortunately evolved to just brains in a jar (don't try to figure it out). It's like the Brian Regan routine, "I'm not EVEN fishing; I'm WATCHING fishing on TV!"
Before we get to the list, an update from CBS on ratings:
CBS coverage of the 2007 Masters on Easter Sunday and Saturday, in which Zach Johnson won the coveted green jacket, was seen in all-or-part by an estimated 41.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research estimates. This year's 41.4 million viewers was up 11% from last year's 37.3 million viewers, and up 6% from 38.9 million in 2004, the last time the Masters was played on Easter Weekend.

The list, from CBS:


As presented by 2007 Masters golf champion Zach Johnson on the Monday, April 9 broadcast of the LATE SHOW:

"Things I Can Say Now That I’ve Won the Masters"

10. I’m going to spend the prize money on Mountain Dew and beef jerky.

9. I once beat a caddy to death with a 7-iron.

8. It’s so weird – before this weekend, I’d never broken 100.

7. The jacket’s ok, but I’m most excited to win the “world’s greatest golfer” key chain.

6. Even I’ve never heard of me.

5. If you like golf, you’ll love the sleek looks and smooth handling of the 2007 Volkswagen Golf Sedan – I just made 50 grand.

4. I just wrote down “3” for every hole. Nobody checked.

3. Maybe I can parlay this into an appearance on “Dancing with the Stars.”

2. It’s a magical week: first I win the Masters, and now I get to tell lame jokes on a third-rate talk show.

1. Thanks to global warming, next year I’m playing without pants.

CNN boosts Chetry, Roberts in place of O'Briens

from CNN:
CNN Names Kiran Chetry, John Roberts as Anchors of American Morning
Soledad O’Brien, Miles O’Brien Remain with Network as Special Correspondents

Kiran Chetry and John Roberts will debut as the new co-anchors of CNN's flagship morning program American Morning on April 16, it was announced by Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S. Soledad O’Brien and Miles O’Brien will remain at the network as featured special correspondents. American Morning airs from 6 to 9 a.m. and was lagging behind other CNN time periods in ratings progress.

WTNH wins Peabody Award

WTNH-TV in New Haven scored a George Foster Peabody Award, it was announced Wednesday, for its investigation into production problems with Blackhawk Helicopters.
The station is one of only four local television stations to win a 2006 Peabody (to be handed out in June in New York), noted news director Kirk Varner.
“We are extraordinarily proud WTNH was one of only four local stations in the country to receive the Peabody Award- considered one of journalism’s most sought after honors,” said Jon Hitchcock, general manager of WTNH/WCTX.
Investigative reporter Alan Cohn and other WTNH staffers uncovered issues with the quality control systems at Stratford-based Sikorsky Aircraft. The story led to a shake-up at Sikorsky and a probe by the Defense Department Inspector General.
Congrats to WTNH.

30 Rock

NBC has renewed "30 Rock" for the fall. I thought the show started weakly but really hit its stride by midseason. Cha-ching for Tina Fey.