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In the Loop

By Allison Romano, Steve McClellan, John M. Higgins and John S. Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/16/2004

Items:
Felicity Attraction
Roberts' Rules Of Irony
Fools Rushed In?
Delay of Game

Felicity Attraction

Outraged Felicity fans are a persuasive bunch. WE: Women's Entertainment, which has been running the college soap, recently pulled the low-rated show without airing its final episodes, eliciting a storm of hysteria (forget the net has already run the show in four or five complete cycles). Viewers started posting hundreds of frantic messages on WE's Web site to get the remaining episodes shown. One Felicity fan reached out to B&C, saying, "Only two of the show's four seasons are available on DVD, so by not airing the final six episodes, viewers are outraged."

We feel your pain, but rest easy: WE relented. It's running the last five episodes March 8-12 at 11 a.m. ET. —A.R.

Roberts' Rules Of Irony

Weirdly enough, Brian Roberts was added at the last minute to the annual 4As ad convention lineup in Orlando, Fla., last week.

The trade group even printed a separate flyer stuffed into its preprinted agenda announcing his addition as a keynote speaker. He canceled on Wednesday, the day the conference began and the day Comcast made its surprise bid for Disney.

The kicker: Roberts' topic was to have been "the changing media landscape."—S.M.

Fools Rushed In?

Does the world really want four books on the fall of AOL Time Warner? It's a rhetorical question. The demise of Steve Case and Jerry Levin had publishers clamoring for a literary recap of the mega-merger's free fall, but sales of the tomes have been startlingly low. Of the three out so far—all by journalists from big-time publications—none has moved even 10,000 copies, according to data tracker Bookscan. The best seller was far from a bestseller. Washington Post reporter Alec Klein's Stealing Time hit the Bookscan meters just 8,750 times. The other two have sold even fewer copies (though Vanity Fair writer Nina Munk's much publicized Fools Rush In debuted just a month ago). "There may be only so much the public wants to read about one media train wreck," says Klein, whose book was the first to hit shelves.—J.M.H.

Title AuthorPub dateSales
Stealing TimeAlec Klein6/038,750
Autumn of the MogulsMichael Wolff11/034,340
Backstory: Inside the Business of NewsKen Auletta12/033,540
There Must Be a Pony in Here SomewhereKara Swisher10/033,300
Fools Rush InNina Munk1/042,420

Delay of Game

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue says he "knew the question would eventually come up." In the wake of the Jackson/Timberlake Super Bowl bust, it has.

Congress and the FCC are so angry over the halftime show, the league may allow a delay on the broadcast of the games. Tagliabue points to logistical problems, including the various outlets that are carrying NFL games, from satellite to broadcast to cable to radio. For example, he says, some Washington fans mute the TV to listen to the radio commentary of former Redskin greats Sonny Jurgenson and Sam Huff.

If it were an extended pause, like CBS's five-minute Grammy delay, says Tagliabue, "then you have gambling issues."—J.E.

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