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Cynopsis
2/16/07
Good Morning, it’s Friday, February 16, 2007 and this is your first early morning briefing.
Fox has picked up two of its primetime series for the 2007-08 season – House and Bones, neither a stunning surprise. So far this season, House has averaged 17.4 million viewers per episode and a 7.1/18 A18-49 rating, while Bones has averaged 8.8 million with 3.1/8 in the key demo.
Tonight’s Premiere:
HBO: Real Time with Bill Maher at 11p
Dog the Bounty Hunter is back in the dog house with the Mexican authority as a federal court in Guadalajara paved the way for Duane “Dog” Chapman to be extradited back to Mexico and face charges of deprivation of liberty. The charge stems back to June 2003 when Dog captured Andrew Luster in Puerto Vallarta, and brought him back to the US to face charges. Luster is currently server a 124 year prison term. Last September Dog, his son and a colleague, were all arrested in Mexico and released on a $300,000 bail. Chapman’s legal team argued he wouldn’t receive a fair trial in Mexico, but the federal court there disagreed. If convicted, Chapman could face up to four years in a Mexican jail.
Traveling to foreign countries sometimes means trying different foods. The Travel Channel’s latest series will showcase this on Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern premiering February 26 at 9p. Andrew’s itinerary will take him to Morocco, Spain, Scotland, China, Tibet and more to experience various cultures through their food such as goat’s head, tongue salad and pigeon pie (yum!). The series is produced by Tremendous! Entertainment for the Travel Channel.
The CW’s season finale of Beauty and The Geek Wednesday night (8-9p) delivered the best finale ratings for the series among A18-34 at 2.4/7 and A18-49 at 1.9/5. The final episode ended up as #2 with both A18-34 and W18-34 after FOX’s Bones.
The Fine Living TV Network will debut a new series What’s Your Time Worth? which will show viewers how to spend money on smart services to save time. The series, produced by Michael Hoff Productions, Inc., will premiere this Sunday with two episodes at 8p and 830p, then air all next week Monday to Friday at 8p. After the premiere week, the show will settle in its regular time period on Saturdays and Sundays at 11a.
The arts network, Ovation TV has just made a carriage pact with DIRECTV and will launch on the satellite provider in mid-2007. With this new agreement, Ovation TV will increase from 5.3 million current subscribers to almost 16 million.
The lay-offs at MTV Networks over several days this week – an estimated 250 jobs eliminated in all – also included these staffers in the Sales & Affiliate Marketing dept: Jessica Heacock, EVP; Susan Keith, SVP; Sandy Ashendorf, SVP. Also let go were David Sussman, General Counsel/EVP; Salli Frattini, SVP/Production; and Kathy Flynn, SVP/Event Productions. The layoffs also swept away many from the Los Angeles and Chicago Affiliate Sales Teams including two from the Affiliate Sales Western region: Dan Teitscheid, Regional VP; Guy Cacciarelli, Senior Director/Sales plus nine others. Also cut this week was the Nick Jr. Family Magazine, which will halt publication following the April 2007 issue.
TBS has ordered eight episodes of a late night series called The Frank Show, from New Wave Entertainment and starring comedian Frank Caliendo, according to Hollywood Reporter. The show will feature an opening monologue before a live audience, pretaped on-location sketches. The show is expected to air at 11pm and launch in the latter part of this year.
Casting Notes:
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ABC:
- Suspect from 25C Prods and Sony Picture TV has signed Michael Ealy to the lead role, in a procedural drama that focuses on the group of suspects in a particular crime.
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NBC:
- Lipstick Jungle from NBC Universal TV Studio about three professional women working on ratcheting up their industry power, has added Chris Wiehl as the husband to Brooke Shields’ character, one of the three women.
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The CW:
- Gravity from Dreamworks and CBS Paramount Network TV, also a cop show but focused on a group of rookies, has added Brooke Nevin as one of the rookies.
The Weather Channel launched broadband-video site Epic.weather.com focused on the convergence of extreme sports and weather. Partnering with Warren Miller Productions, it will feature videos of surfing, snow-skiing, mountain biking and whitewater rafting, encouraging visitors to upload their own extreme sports clips. The site is a companion to TWC’s Epic Conditions series debuting March 4.
Nielsen shared some interesting revelations about how DVR usage differs from live viewing at an annual meeting with clients yesterday in Orlando, Fla. Using its NPOWER software which drills down to measure minute-by-minute ratings, Nielsen discovered virtually all sports and news playbacks, 85 percent of soaps and 75% of sitcoms and primetime dramas occurs within the same day they were recorded among 18 to 34 year old viewers. Nielsen also found that commercial ratings were higher for DVR playbacks that occurred within a day or so of their original broadcast. Nielsen says about 20% of U.S. households now use some sort of DVR.
Marc Goldstein has been upped to North American CEO at GroupM, the unit that oversees WPP companies Mindshare, Mediaedge:cia, Mediacom and Maxus. Marc will share responsibilities for the unit with Rino Scanzoni, Chief Investment Officer, and be responsible for overseeing general management as well as strategic and administrative activities at each of the units. Upped to fill the Goldstein vacancy is Scott Neslund as CEO/Mindshare N.A.
Sarah Tomassi Lindman has been upped to SVP/GM of The N, Noggin’s evening counterpart targeting teens. Sarah steps up into the office previously held by Tom Ascheim who was recently upped to EVP/GM of Nickelodeon Television. Sarah will continue to report to Tom. Additionally, Sarah has a new team programming team – Amy Friedman is SVP/Creative Director of Original Programming, Melinda Fishman is VP/Current Programming and Meeri Park Cunniff has been upped to VP/Programming.
Hans Fischmann has been named GM/Advanced Media Group at Charter Media, where he is charged with increasing profitability through VOD, iTV and interactive advertising for local markets. Based in Los Angeles, he will report to Craig Ruble, VP/Ad Sales.
Gospel Music Channel, headquartered in Atlanta, has invited Richard Bell to join its management team as VP/Finance. In this new capacity, Richard will manage all financial and accounting tasks and be involved with strategic planning, forecasting and budgeting for the network. He will report to Charles Humbard, CEO.
A&E Network has bumped Laura Fleury to Senior Director/Non-Fiction and Alternative Programming. During her 10 years at the network, Laura has provided oversight on the development and production of many of the justice programs including Dallas SWAT, The First 48 and Cold Case Files. Currently, she is developing several pilots for A&E and is working on the launch of the new series Confronting Justice. She will report to Robert Sharenow, SVP/Non-Fiction and Alternative Programming.
Superstation WGN has promoted Chris Gilpatric to VP, Director/Affiliate Relations, effective February 19. Based now at the network’s office in New York, Chris will supervise affiliate relations and marketing, reporting to Bill Shaw, GM.
Dennis K. Gillespie has joined GSN as SVP/Distribution to lead in all areas of distribution for the network and assist with the growth of VOD, international distribution and broadband efforts. Located in New York, Dennis will report to Rich Cronin, President/CEO.
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. has appointed John E. Kampfe as EVP/CFO, effective April 2, where he will report to Phil Kent, Chairman/CEO. John will provide executive management for all financial operations of the company relating to the company’s global news, entertainment, animation, sports, advertising sales and distribution units, in addition to leading the operations of its properties division. Based in Atlanta, he will also join the executive committee that is chaired by Phil Kent. John follows Vicky Miller in this role, who last year announced her retirement plans as CFO after more than 15 years with Turner Broadcasting.
Cathleen Young has been named Executive Director at HUMANITAS Prize to manage the annual awards season and to increase the endowment prize money for winning writers.
In a strategic restructuring move, NBC Universal has expanded the position of three of its senior company executives:
- Beth Comstock becomes President, NBC Universal Integrated Media to include executive oversight of television ad sales, supervised by President Michael Pilot;
- Jeff Gaspin is now President, NBC Universal Cable and Digital Content and will lead the new division that combines cable content and distribution under one umbrella;
- Marc Graboff has been upped to President, NBC Universal Television, West Coast to spearhead the entertainment division, the television studio and the network’s promotion unit.
Correction : In Wednesday’s Exec Moves section, the last name of Kelli Goss, who was promoted to Production Executive at Maloof Productions, was inadvertently misspelled.
Today in Cynopsis Kids, or listen to the audio version here:
- Live Earth – a 24-hour global concert will take place on 7/7/07 across all 7 continents
- The-N launches Trendetta, the network’s first multiplayer/social network game
Today in Cynopsis International, or listen to the audio version here:
- Bell Canada’s Mobile Movies service the first Canadian company to offer full-length PPV Hollywood movies to mobile phones
- TSN and NASCAR inked three agreements covering NASCAR broadcast rights and their NASCAR Canada joint venture
- Comcast-owned AZN Television announces its 2007 AZN Asian Excellence Awards airing on May 28
Wednesday – A18-49 Analysis: FOX took the top prize Wednesday night with an 8.1/21 A18-49, according to fast affiliate ratings from Nielsen Media Research. CBS ranked #2 with 3.5/9, and then came ABC 3.3/8, NBC 2.7/7, UNIV 1.6/4, CW 1.5/4 and TELE 0.4/1. FOX delivered a first place 4.1/11 for Bones at 8p, and then did nearly three times better than its nearest competition at 9p with 12.1/29 for American Idol. ABC led at 10p for the new episode of Lost at 5.6/14, in front of CBS’ CSI: NY at 4.4/11.
Live + Same Day Household Ratings: Wednesday, February 13, 2007 – FEBRUARY SWEEP DAY #13 – time period averages. Source: Nielsen Media Research
FOX 11.8/18 Bones 7.5/12, American Idol 16.1/24
CBS 8.0/13 Return to Jericho 5.0/8, Criminal Minds 9.6/14, CSI: NY 9.4/15
NBC 5.6/9 Friday Night Lights 4.8/8, Deal or No Deal 6.3/9, Medium 5.7/9
ABC 4.9/8 George Lopez 4.7/8, The Knights of Prosperity 3.2/5, Lost [r] 3.2/5, Lost 7.6/12
CW 2.1/3 Beauty & The Geek – Finale 2.6/4, One Tree Hill 1.6/2
UNIV 2.1/3 La Fea Más Bella 2.7/4, Mundo de Fieras 1.9/3, Don Francisco Presenta 1.7/3
TELE 0.6/1 Marina 0.7/1, Zorro 0.7/1, Decisiones De Famosos 0.5/1
A18-49: FOX 8.1/21, CBS 3.5/9, ABC 3.3/8, NBC 2.7/7, UNIV 1.6/4, CW 1.5/4, TELE 0.4/1
Friday Fun Fact: Frogs can’t swallow with their eyes open.
This Day in History:
1932: First patent issued for a tree, to James Markham for a peach tree
Answer to Yesterday’s Trivia: This week in Cynopsis we mentioned General Hospital-Night Shift is in the works at Soap Net and is based on the same characters of the daytime soap. During the 70’s which GH actor made his debut not only as a doctor, but proved he was a musician as well? RICK SPRINGFIELD AKA DR. NOAH DRAKE Kudos to: Michelle Pilson-Sony Pictures Television/NY; Casey Connor-Oxygen Media/NY; Melissa Friedman/NY; Rick Morris-Eclipse TV Production/Cos Cob, CT; Christy Yahn-Echostar/Denver; Judy Margolis-The Ad Place/Dallas; Erin Elmiger-Aquarius Broadcasting/Chicago; Marisa Medina-Blair/Chicago; Susan Torrey-New Day Marketing/Santa Barbara; Judi Schultz-Woodson Media Inc/Portland; Sean Keegan-Evil Empire/LA; Susan Rosen-R & R Productions/Valley Village; Rachel Goldstein-Couto-The Comedy Network/Scarborough ON
Today’s Trivia Question: If “You’re In Good Hands”, whose hands are you in? (click here with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: Only the second four correct answers from each time zone will be mentioned; and once you have been mentioned in any of the Cynopsis editions, you can’t be mentioned again that calendar week.
Later — Cyn
02-16-07
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SPRING INTERNSHIPS – These positions are for credit only – nobody gets paid here. They are posted for free, and students work for school credit only. For more information on the specs for posting an Internship ad, email Trish at [email protected] .
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WHAT’S ON TONIGHT: Friday February 16, 2007
ABC: Grey’s Anatomy, Grey’s Anatomy, 20/20
CBS: Ghost Whisperer, Close to Home, Numb3rs
CW: Friday Night Smackdown
FOX: Nanny 911, Trading Spouses
ION: Mama’s Family, Mama’s Family, Diagnosis Murder, Charlie’s Angels
MNT: Wicked Wicked Games, Watch Over Me
NBC: 1 vs. 100, Las Vegas, Law & Order
PBS: Washington Week, Now, America’s Ballroom Challenge, Monty Python’s Flying Circus
TELE: Marina, Amor Mio, Amor Mio, Decisiones de Famosos
UNIV: La Fea Masa Bella, Mundo de Fieras, Casos de la Vida Real: Edicion Especial
