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CYNTHIA TURNER’S
Cynopsis

03/03/05

Good morning. It’s Thursday, March 3, 2005, and this is your first early morning briefing.

The final Tuesday of the February sweep found Fox out in front once again, posting an overall 8.6/21 A18-49 rating according to final national numbers from Nielsen Media Research.  CBS followed with a 4.3/11, then ABC 4.1/10, NBC 3.1/8, WB 2.0/5, UPN 1.4/3.  American Idol kicked off the night with an 11.0/28, followed by House on Fox with a 6.2/15.  CBS’s 2-hour premiere of The Amazing Race delivered a 4.9/12 from 9-11p, and the series finale of NYPD Blue began with a one hour tribute at 9p (4.2/10), with the show itself pulling in a time period winning 5.2/13 at 10p.

According to a report issued by Broadcast Cable Financial Management Association, ad revenues for the big three broadcast networks in 2004 totaled $11.727 billion, a 12.1% gain over the previous year’s numbers, based on figures compiled by Ernst & Young.  A goodly portion of those additional dollars can be attributed to a 47% gain in sports advertising (vs. 2003) due to the Summer Olympics.  News ad revenues were also up year to year by 7.4%, and up in 4th qtr by 14%, though were down in 4th qtr by 36% as compared to the 2000 election year.  BCFM attribute that 4th qtr dip partly as a result of campaign spending that looked to local market buys in swing states as opposed to national buys. Other areas that saw upticks in 2004 vs. 2003 were mornings up by 13%, primetime up by 4.6%.  For more info on this report and othes from BCFM, check out http://www.bcfm.com/bcfm_news/NetworkOrderForm.pdf

Tonight’s Premieres:
NBC:    Law & Order: Trial by Jury at 10p

Casting / Development / Production:
Scrambled Eggs Productions, headed up by Alan Grossbard and Pamela Fryman, has signed a production and consulting deal with E! Networks. The company will also serve as executive in charge of production on several pilots and series currently in development for E! Entertainment Television and The Style Network, as well as bring new series to the network.  Already on its plate is a pilot called Beauty Insider (Scrambled Eggs, Flame TV, Sephora) for The Style Network, described as the ‘ultimate beauty show [that] takes you inside the world of beauty like never before.”

Casting Updates:

• Lifetime has added Rick Schroeder to its cast of Strong Medicine when the show kicks off its sixth season this June.  Schroeder will play a physician, and the one male lead character.
• ABC:
  • The network has found its president – Geena Davis has been cast to star in Commander in Chief (Touchstone TV/Battle Plan Prods), lifting the cast contingency.  Commander in Chief is about the first female President of the United States.  Previously cast as the First Gentleman is Kyle Secor, an dother cast members include Ever Carradine and Henry J. Lennix.
  • William Fitchner joins the cast of Invasion (Warner Bros. TV) as the town sheriff dealing with aliens.  Also cast is Eddie Cibrian.
  • Westside (Warner Bros. TV/Class IV Prods) has another real estate broker in Stark Sands, who joins Judith Light, Ashley Scott and Charlotte Ross.
• WB:
  • Drama pilot Pepper Dennis (20th) has cast Rebecca Romijn in the lead role about a woman reporter in Chicago who is also juggling her family and her romantic relationships.
• NBC:
  • Blue Skies (NBC Universal Studios) has cast Missi Pyle, about a stockbroker turned YMCA lifeguard, played by Anna Faris.
• Fox:
  • New Car Smell (20th) has added two to its cast lineup – Dave Atell and Dana Daurey.  As previously announced, Brooke Shields will lead the cast which also includes Christopher McDonald.
  • Krista Allen joins Chris O’Donnell and Adam Goldberg in the as yet untitled drama about two nuts lawyers – one who should really be in anger management classes (Goldberg), and the other who has suffered a nervous breakdown (O’Donnell).  Allen’s role is as O’Donnell’s characters ex wife. Other cast members include Rachael Leigh Cook and Rockmond Dunbar.
  • Another untitled project for Fox is set in a Las Vegas wedding chapel, and focuses on a brother and sister who own the 24/7 service. Recently cast is Leslie Bibb as the sister, opposite Mark-Paul Gosselaar as the brother in the Spelling TV project.

Eye for an Eye clearances have added several new major markets to its list. The show from National Lampoon and Atlas Worldwide Syndications & Distributions has recently added WRBU/St. Louis; KBWB/San Francisco; KVVU/Las Vegas; KSWB/San Diego; KDAF/Dallas; KWBA/Tucson; WBKI/Louisville; KWBT/Tulsa and KASY & KWBQ/Albuquerque.

TheKnot.com, the website used by those planning weddings, will begin offering streaming video of wedding-planning entertainment on The Knot TV.  Programming will include Real Wedding Stories (from the Oxygen Network series Real Wedding from The Knot); Wedding Fashion Shows featuring collections from top named designers; Hot Wedding Trends and I Do How To’s.

In the battle of the red carpets –  E!‘s coverage with Star Jones and Kathy Griffin from 6-8p ET delivered a 1.6 A18-49, with a 2-hour HH rtg of 2.5, with total viewership of 2.77 million.  Meanwhile, TV Guide earned a 1.0 HH coverage rtg, up by 150% vs. last year’s event, and a .6 A18-49 coverage rating.  TV Guide also delivered over a million viewers for its coverage with Joan and Melissa Rivers, the highest number of total viewers for a single broadcast in TV Guide’s history.

February Cable Highlights – and you’ll be glad to know nearly everyone had their best month ever:

• A&E was up among A25-54 in February by 10% with 519,000 viewers, and up 23% among A18-49 with 459,000 viewers, marking A&E’s 17th consecutive month of year to year growth. One of the top performers for the month was Dog The Bounty Hunter, with several premiere episodes averaging over one million A25-54 viewers.
• AMC experienced growth in all dayparts among A18-49, averaging 215,000 viewers for total day – an increase of 33% vs. last year; and 362,000 viewers in primetime, an increase of 22% in February 2004.  Additionally, the A25-54 demo is up year to year in by 10% in total day with 235,000 viewers.
• Bravo saw year to year increases in several key demos this February , thanks in large part to Project Runway, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and the film Braveheart, among others.  A18-49 were up 31% and A25-54 were up 18%, and total viewers were up 22%.  Bravo also decreased its primetime median age to 41.5, down from 44.6 last year. 
• Comedy Central saw year to year gains among A18-49 of 23% with a .37 rtg year to year, with total viewers up by 27% for total day vs. February 2204.  In primetime, CC delivere a .58 A18-49 with one million total viewers, marking an increase of 26% and 33% respectively.  More specifically, The Daily Show delivered 1.5 million viewers nightly during February, 100k more than it did during the presidential election last fall; and averaged a .94 A18-49 rating for new episodes. Total viewership for The Daily Show was up 32% year to year, and up 31% in the A18-49 demo.
• Court TV earned a .9 HH rtg for the month of February, with a nightly average of 913,000 viewers, an increase of 13% vs. Feb 2004. Among A18-49, Court TV was up by 33% year to year, posting a .4 rtg. The network attributes much of its February success to new episodes of Dominick Dunne’s Power, Privilege and Justice, Psychic Detectives, Masterminds, I, Detective, The Investigators, North Mission Road and Forensic Files.
• History Channel earned its best delivery for any February in the A18-49 and A25-54 demos, and earned an overall HH average for February of a 1.0.  Among A18-49, History delivered 468,000 impressions, up 8% vs. last February; and 538,000 impression among A25-54, up 4% year to year.  Top shows for the month included Deep Sea Detectives: Underwater Caves (1.4 HH Rtg), History Sunday: The Horrors at Andersonville (1.4), and History Sunday: Tora, Tora, Tora: The Real Story (1.4).
• Lifetime Television posted its fourth straight month of primetime household ratings increases during February with a 1.5, up 15% from February’s 1.3 HH rtg.  Total viewers were up 9% averaging 1.6 million.  Lifetime attributes much of its February success on its New Movie Monday (up 71% among W18-49), its prime weekday movie (up 13% among W18-49), and its Lifetime Original Movie “More S#x & the Single Mom” which delivered 3.0 million viewers.
• Oxygen‘s world broadcast premiere of Warner Bros.’ Murder by Numbers delivered a .88 HH Rtg last Saturday evening (Feb 26), earning the net’s highest A18-49 rating of any primetime movie on Oxygen. The film also gave Oxygen its best numbers ever in several key demos including A18-49, A25-54, W18-49 and W25-54.
• Two new shows on Spike TV delivered solid numbers in February — Carpocalypse delivered 908,000 total viewers on 2/26 at 8pm, and a .7 demo rating among both M18-34 and M18-49.  It’s other premiere series, Boom aired on 2/26 at 9p and delivered 643,000 viewers, with a .6 M18-49 and .5 M18-34.
• TV Land had its most watch month in its 9-year history among A25-54 and total viewers on a total programming day, thanks in part to the regularly scheduled Highway to Heaven, Bonanza and The Andy Griffith Show. In total day averages, TV Land earned a 0.3 A25-54 in February, and 642,000 total viewers, up 32% year to year. In primetime the net delivered a 0.4 A25-54 (up 33% year to year) and 931,000 viewers (up 19%).
• VH1 averaged 585,000 total viewers in primetime for February, up 27% over last year.  In total day, the net was up 29% with 364,000 total viewers. VH1 attributes its February growth to four series: Celebreality, Surreal Life, Strange Love and Celebrity Fit Club.

I’m sure you’ve been asking yourself lately, as have I, “What is Robin Leach up to these day?”.  The answer is he and a partner have launched themselves a low power television station in Las Vegas that bills itself as “devoted to all things Las Vegas”.  KVTE (stands for Vegas Television Entertainment) launched on March 1, and focuses entirely on its home city, chock full of local programming, and in the words of Leach, “All Vegas all the time” with a mix of news, entertainment, lifestyle, financial news, sports (including a crawl listing the odds given by local casinos for various events) and public affairs programming, including entertainment series Vegas 24/7.

Casting Note:  SOAPnet‘s I Wanna Be A Soap Star will be holding open casting calls for its second season. The winner of the series gets a 13-week contract role on All My Children.  Auditions will take place in LA this Saturday, March 5 at The Prospect Studios (4151 Prospect Avenue Stage 7) and in NY next Saturday, March 12 at the All My Children Stages 320 West 66th Street.  Both start at 9am.  Anyone who wants to audition must register at  www.iwannabeasoapstar.com

Correction : Extreme Justice with Mark Geragos is from Stone & Company Entertainment, not Stone Stanley & Co as mentioned here yesterday.   (Scott Stone is a former part of Stone Stanley. Former being the key word.)

Suzanne Sobel, publisher of Martha Stewart Living magazine, and EVP of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, resigned on Monday, less than a week before Martha is released from prison.  No one has been named to succeed as yet.

Showtime Networks has named Penny Reiss to VP/Product Integration, based in LA and reporting to Melinda Benedek, EVP/Business Affairs and Production, as well as Len Fogge, EVP/Creative & Marketing.  Penny will oversee the day-to-day responsibilities associated with product integration, including product alliances, commercial tie-ins and merchandising opportunities with outside companies.  She is also charged with creating relationships with external marketing partners such as retailers, major websites, consumer product companies and others. 

Jerry Leo joins Bravo as VP/Strategic Program Planning & Scheduling, overseeing long range planning, scheduling of programs and stunts on the network, and non-film acquisitions. Jerry reports to Frances Berwick, SVP/Programming and Production. Jerry steps into the vacancy left by Dan Harrison who was recently upped to SVP/Cross-Network Strategy & Emerging Networks, NBC Universal Cable Entertainment. Dan will continue to support Bravo in all of its strategic studio film and series acquisitions

NBC Universal Cable (NBCU Cable) announced today three uppings within the affiliate field sales group:  Corinne Bellville, Heather McCallion and Jennifer Toole, all to Director/Affiliate Field Sales.  Each executive will support affiliate sales and relations duties for all of NBCU Cable networks (Bravo, CNBC, CNBC World, MSNBC, mun2, NBC Weather Plus, Sci-Fi, ShopNBC, Telemundo, Telemundo Puerto Rico, Trio, Universal HD, USA and the Olympics on cable).  Corinne oversees New Mexico and Oklahoma in addition to Arizona, Arkansas and Louisiana; Heather adds Metro New
York, Metro Philadelphia, and New Jersey, and continue to oversee Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.  Jennifer now oversees Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts in addition to upstate New York and Pennsylvania (with the exception of Philadelphia).

Tom Kuhn has joined MediaCom as SVP/Group Planning Director on the VW/Audi account.  Tom previously served as SVP/Account Supervisor for Gianettino & Meredith Advertising, Inc., where he spent 15 years.  He also served as a consultant to the New York Chevrolet Local Marketing Group.

Clear Channel Television Jacksonville has named Bernie Farris its new of National Sales Manager for WTEV / WAWS, effective March 14.  Bernie makes the move from Clear Channel/Savannah, Georgia, where he was a sales manager for the duopoly of WJCL / WTGS. Bernie joines Stan Davis in managing the national sales interests for the two Clear Channel stations.

Tuesday, March 1, 2005. FINAL Ratings for all Networks – program averages.  Source: Nielsen Media Research. 

FOX     12.7/19  American Idol 15.7/23, House 9.7/14

CBS     7.9/12   NCIS 8.7/13, The Amazing Race [p] 7.5/12

ABC     7.9/12   My Wife & Kids 4.6/7, George Lopez 4.8/7, NYPD Blue: Final Tribute 8.7/13, NYPD Blue [series finale] 10.4/17

NBC     5.8/9    Law & Order: CI [r] 4.2/6, Scrubs 4.8/7, Committed 4.3/6, Law & Order: SVU 8.5/14

WB      3.3/5    Gilmore Girls 3.7/6, One Tree Hill 2.8/4

UPN     2.3/4    All of Us 1.7/3, Eve 2.0/3, America’s Next Top Model #3 2.8/4

A18-49  Fox 8.6/21, CBS 4.3/11, ABC 4.1/10, NBC 3.1/8, WB 2.0/5, UPN 1.4/3

A MESSAGE FROM ABC KIDS NETWORKS

The History Channel presents This Day in History:
1975 – Charlie Chaplin, 85, is knighted by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace. Chaplin’s knighthood had been delayed by many years because of his perceived “communist” sympathies.
 
Answer to Yesterday’s TV Trivia Question: This item is also known as the Rigid Digit, the Winged Weenie, Wonderful Wiggler, and the Nifty Knuckle.  What was its real name? THE FLYING FICKLE FINGER OF FATE AWARD on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.  Kudos to:  Dennis Degan-NBC Today Show/NY; Andrew Lazzaro-The Bowsprit Group/NY; John Hillis-Equinox Media Int’l/Round Hill VA; Jim Cosco-Tippingpoint Labs/Newton MA; Walter Hammock-Showcase Cable Ad Sales/Houston; Robb Gray-Apex Media/Tucson; Steve McDonald-KDAF/Dallas; Rich Ambrose-Time Warner Cable Media Sales/Chicago; Susan Nessanbaum Goldberg-SoapTalk/LA; Jim Johnson/LA; Mark Goodman-Goodymade Inc./LA; Ann Foster-Stay At Home Prods/South Pasadena.   Say goodnight, Dick. … Goodnight, Dick.

A MESSAGE FROM COURT TV

Today’s TV Trivia Question:  The show is listed as a western and the description is a “motorcyle-riding sheriff of questionable character, who was killed in Season #1 so he could be replaced the next season by his more heroic identical twin brother.” The series never saw Season #2.  What was the name of this 1970-71 series on NBC was not renewed. (click here with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone with your answer. Unofficial rules: Only the second four correct answers from each time zone will be mentioned; and once you’ve been mentioned in any of the Cynopsis editions, you can’t be mentioned again that calendar week.)

Later — Cyn
03.03.05  5:13am

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WHAT’S ON TONIGHT:  MARCH 3, 2005:

ABC              Extreme Makeover, Primetime Live
CBS              Survivor, CSI, Without a Trace
FOX              The O.C., The O.C.
NBC              Joey, Will & Grace, The Apprentice, Law & Order: Trial by Jury [p]
PAX              AFV, AFV, Diagnosis Murder, Diagnosis Murder
UPN              WWE Smackdown
WB               Summerland [r], Summerland [r]
TELE             Rumbo al Mundial: Mexico v. Colombia (730-930p), Anita no te rajes, La Mujer en el Espejo
UNIV             Rubi, Amor Real, Aqui y Ahora