It’s Friday, and since we no longer get to spend the day in eager, breathless anticipation of the arrival of ABC’s TGIF lineup, I guess the only thing to do is look at a few TV news items, blog posts, and clips:
– NBC is dropping The Listener. CTV hasn’t decided what they’re going to do with it.
– Earl Pomerantz talks about “period” comedies and why they don’t usually click with the audience. (I would say that M*A*S*H is a different kettle of fish because it had very few period touches — and the movie had even fewer. It deliberately played up the resemblance to our time.)
– In a clear suggestion that Nikki Finke’s influence is waning, The New York Times does an article about how influential she is. In a strange way, her success is similar to the type of success achieved by many modern TV shows (and therefore by the studios she writes about): she’s not a mass-audience success, but she’s hugely popular with a niche audience, of people who care about the business end of this business we call show. And by catering to a niche audience, she’s become more important and successful than someone who starts up yet another celebrity-gossip blog.
– Howard Bernstein on the CRTC and carriage fees.
– Just because you’re a long-running series going off the air doesn’t mean the Emmy voters will treat you with affection.
– Remember the Sotomayor episode of The Dukes of Hazzard?
And for fans of musicals and/or the era when New York was at the centre of the TV universe, a trip back to that time: Rodgers and Hammerstein as the “mystery guests” on What’s My Line.
Rodgers and an ailing Hammerstein made a return visit a few years later to plug a more successful show, The Sound of Music, and once again, that spoilsport publisher Bennett Cerf recognized their voices.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0832EuDtF0