Insight. Antics.

Archive for the ‘Television’ Category

Promote ‘N Vote.

In Politics, Television on December 23, 2011 at 9:28 am

This Republican primary season has had over a dozen debates. You might be thinking, “That’s quite enough.” After all, voting starts in less than two weeks, in Iowa. Well, guess what, caballeros, depending on the list you look at, we just barely passed the halfway point of these rhetorical slugfests. ¡Que sorpresa!

Despite the onslaught of translucent podiums and ever-inventive, nearly exhausted ways in which production designers have toiled to erect a new interpretation of the star and stripes on stage, we’re just. Not. Done.

In acknowledgement of the strong viewership they have attracted, the widening array of issues being discussed, and the rife cross-promotional synergies, may I present the remaining calendar:

VH1′s Divas Live! Debate

January 7, 2012

Hollis, NH

In this penultimate debate before the New Hampshire primary, the GOP candidates reiterate that strong, confident, independent women do not have a right to choose. Michele Bachmann deftly parlays one of her answers into an on-key verse from “I’m Every Woman.” To compensate, the men spout off about their wives, while claiming they clearly came out ahead of everyone else in the Iowa caucuses, even though they all basically ended up coming in a tie there. Read the rest of this entry »

All Guts, No Glory.

In Television on December 13, 2011 at 4:36 pm

This is ostensibly a blog about media and politics, but it gets pulled in the political direction a bit more often. I think that’s because the daily developments of that world feel more consequential (even if that is illusory) and spark a more pointed and immediate reaction.

However, as a voracious follower of television, and occasionally gracious sharer of the remote control, I have plenty to say on the topic. So, when I read that NBC was bringing back Fear Factor, I cringed. And upon seeing an ad for it in which it appears men and women are bobbing for apples in a pool of blood, I also reacquainted with my gag reflex. Indeed, LA Times, indeed: “Horse rectum for everyone!”

We know you’re struggling, NBC, but this smacks of desperation. What happened to the NBC execs of a few years ago who were lamenting their network being reduced to showing frat guys eating bugs in primetime in the mid-aughts? I don’t know if it’s a result of their new Comcast overlords, but this is a step backwards over a lesson it seemed was already learned.

When a viewer files a lawsuit (eventually dismissed) saying your show made him vomit prolific piles of protein, what makes you sit down with your team and say, “I think we had something here. Let’s bring it back.”

Variety reports (subscription required) that Fear Factor re-opened well. In the ratings on Monday night it was seventh overall, with 8.5 million viewers, and fourth in the 18-49 demographic. (To put that another way, 8.5 million people watched five scorpions get eaten alive by some girl. Despair.)

Read the rest of this entry »

OutFront, Top-Down.

In Media, Television on October 4, 2011 at 12:44 am

I watched Erin Burnett’s debut on CNN tonight, in her new program OutFront, and have some thoughts on the first broadcast.

Unlike the world of scripted TV dramas and sitcoms, first shows don’t portend success or failure in news, or variety programs, for that matter. I remember watching the first Colbert Report and thinking it was never going to last, for instance.

OutFront conveyed a seriousness about the news of the day coupled with conversational frankness, though it’s unclear whether it (or anything) can stand out in a cable news landscape where the graphics all look so similar that it’s hard to know when one show ends and another begins. After all, to the average channel clicker, isn’t Erin Burnett just (recent CNN anchor) Campbell Brown 10 years younger?

No disrespect to Ms. Brown, but I’d argue no. Burnett has proven she has chops in interviews with CEOs and guts in travels to hotspots around the globe, including Cairo’s Tahrir Square earlier this year.

I’m a longtime fan of Erin’s from her work at CNBC, chiefly on Squawk on the Street (where I know her former producer) and Street Signs. She could also hold her own on Meet the Press. Read the rest of this entry »

A Cents Of Entitlement.

In Economy, Government, Television on January 25, 2011 at 8:04 pm

The State of the Union address is less than an hour away and there have been hints and suggestions from the president as to what major themes and issues he will highlight. Republicans have been laying down the sand and salt to contain any new spending proposals slipped in by Obama tonight.

I’m taking a year off from live-blogging the event, because I haven’t yet mastered how to juggle that task while engaging in a rigorous drinking game, rife with sips and gulps on buzzwords like “bipartisan” and “competitiveness,” and selected prepositions like “by” and “on.”

Undoubtedly, the horrific shootings in Tucson will be referenced in the speech. Job growth and American perseverance will be a key component, with the unemployment rate stubbornly in the 9%-range, and China, brimming with production, on the brink of becoming a full-fledged global rival.

Other topics that will likely be broached are Social Security, Medicare, the national deficit, and tax policy. The debate around these subjects has increased in the last few months, not only with the November elections, but with the plan unveiled by a bipartisan panel on addressing the debt, commissioned by the White House.

The panel released an extensive set of recommendations to bring our maxed out credit card into balance. I wonder if anyone on it considered redeeming our Membership Rewards points to do this. We must have enough now to at least pay for the flight to China, so that we can then bust open the main cabin door and hose them down with all their gobs of money. If they did mull this one over, they didn’t opt for it. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s All The Hub(bub)?

In Television on December 12, 2010 at 10:08 pm

Oh my God, I love The Hub. It’s only two months old, but it’s already a fixture of my TV diet.

What is The Hub?  It’s a new cable channel that plays all these shows from back in the day.

If you’re like me, you probably didn’t even realize you were longing for Doogie Howser and Wonder Years reruns, but you were. Or Fraggle Rock! Man, that Muppet-derived funfest takes me back. Seriously, has Fraggle Rock even been on American TV since it aired on HBO in the 80s? And, in the premiere of Doogie, Neil Patrick Harris throws his driving test to speed to the scene of an accident, push a cop away, and fix some dude’s leg. You can’t make this stuff up, though I guess Steven Bochco and David E. Kelley did in 1989.

What else? Family Ties, which New York magazine also noticed. (Seriously, the writers of their Approval Matrix and I have algorithmically similar tastes in cultural consumption.) There are also a few shows from before my time like Laverne & Shirley, the original 60s “Pow! Kaboom!” Batman, and Happy Days. Then again, who doesn’t know the Fonz?

Sure, some of this stuff may be on Hulu or iTunes, but you are less likely to know it’s there and seek it out than stumble on it on TV. Read the rest of this entry »

Carson Daly: Not A Douchebag?

In Television on October 1, 2010 at 9:21 am

I have an admission to make. I do this at great personal risk and I fully expect friends to disown me. Okay, here goes.

I’ve written before about how I’ve been up late some nights. In that vein, I’ve recently caught pieces of Last Call, Carson Daly’s half-hour show, on after Jimmy Fallon’s incarnation of Late Night. And I have to say, it’s not bad. In fact, it’s pretty good. There’s more, and please don’t banish me from the Internet after I say it: underneath it all, I’ve actually always thought that Daly was a cool guy.

There, I said it. Before you renounce me, give me a chance to make my case.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s The Economy, Genius.

In Economy, Politics, Television on September 21, 2010 at 8:40 am

Monday at noon, President Obama sat with John Harwood and a town hall audience for an hour at the Newseum in Washington to discuss the economy live on CNBC. Talk about stretching it out. CNBC took a rolling pin to that hour’s worth of content and spread it out over multiple dayparts. The morning preview/speculation coverage was already well underway at 9:00AM on Squawk on the Street and the screen was adorned with obligatory countdown clock to boot.

Leading up to the event, regional focus group viewing panels were asked for their opinions. Pundits pundited. Correspondents corresponded. “What do traders and bankers want to hear?” “It’s live… what if some question comes out of left field, I mean, the market is open!?” Afterwards, they did it all over again, but this time at least with clips, something to go on. And for twice as long. C’est la media.

So, what about the actual town hall? Well, it was pretty candid. On both sides. Definitely from the questioners, arguably from the president. The audience was respectful, if not deferential and admiring, but visibly shaken and frustrated by their collective lot in life.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dramatic Reversal.

In Television on June 3, 2010 at 3:20 am

Everybody in media is trying to figure out where TV is going. How will we consume content?  On Hulu? On iPads? Intravenously? (Oh, to get a steady drip of Mad Men in my bloodstream… the euphoria…)

Those markets and models are in the midst of transition. However, one thing that has become clear within the medium itself is that with the combined ends of Lost (amid clever audience-specific Target ads), 24 (four “days” too late), and Law & Order (it’s rare to find a show that is older than all of your shirts), the network drama has changed. Those were the most culturally iconic, influential dramas left on the networks. Their collective finale presents an opportunity to discuss a shift in the paradigm: the era of the serial drama on broadcast television is over.

In the late Nineties and early Aughts, shows like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and Nip/Tuck co-existed in their natural habitats with the likes of West Wing, ER, and NYPD Blue. Now that the upstarts of original cable programming are highly evolved, there’s a schism.

Serial dramas, characterized by a narrative arc that plays out over the course of a season or over the entire series, have taken refuge among the cable stars. When did the last successful network serial drama that’s still on-air launch? In 2005, with Grey’s Anatomy?

Let’s face it; shows get a bit of a cache for being on high-end cable. It’s much cooler to say you’re watching True Blood tonight than the The Vampire Diaries. Read the rest of this entry »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.