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Wednesday, November 14, 2007
November 14, 2007
By Alex Weprin
[That’s a Lot of Cash] The writers strike is costing late night hosts David Letterman and Jay Leno more than $100,000 a night. Leno stopped receiving his weekly check from the peacock network since he decided to honor the strike and not come in. As for Letterman, says the NY Post: “Letterman owns his "Late Show," so when he stopped making new episodes last week, CBS ceased paying his production company. The payments include Dave's estimated $600,000 weekly salary, a knowledgeable source said.”
[Ellen Isn’t Welcome Anymore] Ellen Degeneres was scheduled to tape a few episodes of her syndicated talk show in New York November 19th and 20th. Of course then we had a strike, and Ellen only took one day off, and continues to host her show. The WGAE released a statement saying that Ellen “Is not welcome in New York.” I guess she got the memo. Ellen has canceled her trip to our fine city of big apples. See kids, strikes can damage friendships. Why can’t we all just get along?
[Network News Ratings Battle # 287] NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams won last week’s evening news ratings race, beating out rival (and B&C hall of famer) Charlie Gibson in the key demo. But not everything is as it seems. For whatever reason, all of the shows got a ratings boost, with Williams gaining nearly a million viewers, Gibson picking up 610,000 viewers, and Katie Couric picking up 570,000. Huffington Post’s Rachel Sklar has a tongue kinda sorta in cheek theory: did Williams’ SNL gig give him some news viewership, or is there another, more enigmatic action in play?
[Strike = Opportunity… or Not] The Internet is a strange beast. Yes, you can get breaking news, original reporting, etc, but once in a while an old article pops up on your Diggs, and your Reddits, and your Del.icio.us-(es?) that may nor be new, but has rather long been forgotten, only to be rediscovered. Today that article is Howstuffworks.com’s “How Getting Your Show on TV Works.” It is essentially a guide to getting your show on TV. With the writers strike dominating coverage, some enterprising fans might try to pitch a few ideas of their own. Or maybe the articles newfound popularity is just a coincidence. I don’t know, the series of tubes seem to have a mind of their own sometimes. (See Paul, Ron)
[Somebody Diggs the Wall Street Journal] Speaking of Digg: a follow up to yesterday’s article about Rupert Murdoch wanting to make WSJ.com free. It already is. But you have to go through some hoops to do it. WSJ.com is adding “Digg buttons” to all of their articles. So if an article is dugg, then anyone accessing the article through Digg can see it for free. In other words, if you want to read an article in the Wall Street Journal, but you don’t want to spring for a paper or pay a yearly fee, you know where to go.
[Imus in the Morning … on TV] RFD-TV, a little watched cable TV channel, has signed a five year deal to simulcast Don Imus’ new WABC radio show. Back when he was broadcasting on CBS Radio, Imus’ show was simulcast on MSNBC. To say this is a slight step back would be an understatement. Of course just about everything Imus has done has been a step back, from a national show to a local show, from a big cable network to a teeny one. Really the only thing he hasn’t done is piss off the WGA. Alright Don, you can piss everyone else off, why not give it a whirl?
[Get Better Nancy] CNN Headline News anchor Nancy Grace has been hospitalized due to complications from her pregnancy. Her twins are doing fine, and hopefully mom will be able to join them soon after being released from the hospital.
Posted by BC Crawler on November 14, 2007 | Comments (0)
