Fast Track

Unlike the short shrift given to most foreign disasters, U.S. networks are gearing up for long-running coverage of the massive South Asian earthquake and tsunami.

With more than 100,000 believed dead (including many tourists) in an array of countries hit by the waves, news executives expect the tsunami story to be of continuing interest to American audiences for several more weeks. The immediate rush to get crews into Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and Indonesia is being followed up by additional staffing to intensively cover the disaster and recovery effort.

Western journalists that were stationed near the region’s coastal resorts swept in. Now the challenge is to get additional crews into more remote areas. One of the regions sustaining the greatest devastation is the Indonesian province of Aceh. “It’s so close to the epicenter, who knows what horrors are there?” says CBS Foreign Editor Chris Hulme.

Every network is relying on local stringers, as well as news agencies that are crucial in getting amateur video plus reports from remote zones. CNN, as always, is the best-staffed U.S. network because it maintains the most extensive array of foreign bureaus.

But networks aren’t adding up the cost of the coverage—yet. “We have not had one money discussion since the story broke,” says David Rhodes, director of news gathering at Fox News.

ABC’s Desperate Housewives is the most popular broadcast network TV show with kids ages 9-12.

That’s according to Nielsen ratings for the week of Dec. 13-19. The sexy ABC adult drama boasted over a million elementary and junior-high viewers, according to the latest count. The overwhelming favorites among the 9-14 demo are Nickelodeon cable kids shows SpongeBob, Fairly Odd Parents, Jimmy Neutron, Drake & Josh, and All Grown Up. The only broadcast network show in the top 20, coming in at No. 12, is Desperate Housewives, a cross between Peyton Place and Picket Fences.

Fox is under fire for airing scenes in the Jan. 9 debut of drama 24 that portray a Muslim teenager and his parents as members of a terrorist cell plotting a mass attack on Americans. It’s the second Fox show to generate controversy in the past two weeks. (The National Council For Adoption demanded Fox cancel Who’s Your Daddy?, a guess-your-birthfather reality special.)

In the episode, a teenager fights with his conservative Dad about dating an American girl and talking on the phone. The young man also helps his parents mastermind a plot to kill Americans with an attack on a train.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil-rights and advocacy group, plans to bring their concerns about the episode to Fox, says group spokeswoman Rabiah Ahmed. That group has previously received complaints about the depiction of Muslims on 24, but this episode is particularly egregious, she said. “They are taking everyday American Muslim families and making them suspects,” she said.

At press time, officials at Fox had no comment.

Actor Jerry Orbach, who spent 12 seasons playing hard-boiled detective Lennie Briscoe on NBC’s Law & Order, has died of prostate cancer. Orbach, 69, a Broadway and film star before L&O, was a cast member of spin-off Law & Order: Trial By Jury, which premieres later this year. Wolfe Productions says that “While Jerry is irreplaceable, L&O: Trial by Jury is an ensemble.” Orbach’s role will be recast.