CYNTHIA TURNER’S
Cyn opsis

01/11/05

Good morning. It’s Tuesday, January 11, 2005, and this is your first early morning briefing. 

The fall out from the Independent Review Panel’s findings of the 60 Minutes Wednesday broadcast in which President Bush’s service record in the Texas National Guard was put into question, removes four CBS News executives from the ranks. A lengthy statement provided by Leslie Moonves, Co-President and Co-COO of Viacom and Chairman/CEO of CBS, outlined the cause and action of each of the four employees. Citing a handful of reasons including faulty reporter, Producer Mary Mapes has been terminated. Exec Producer Josh Howard, Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy and SVP/Primetime Betsy West have all been asked to resign for reasons specific to each, including not asking right questions to ascertain the authenticity of the report, for not fulfilling their job requirements during the vetting process of the documents and/or the sources, and not making sure everything in the story complied with CBS News standards of remaining fair and unbiased.  Dan Rather, as you know, apologized on air and then announced he will step down from the anchor position in March.  No further action will be taken.  Andrew Heyward, CBS News President, will remain in his position after the Review Panel’s findings that Heyward did a lot of the right things, though, according to the Moonves statement, “[his] directives were not implemented in a prompt or systemic way.”  Moonves went on to say “Heyward is an executive of integrity and talent, and the right person to be leading CBS News during this challenging time.”  See see the full 234-page Independent Review Panel Report, go to: http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/complete_report/CBS_Report.pdf ; and to read Les Moonves full response (considerably shorter, but no less compelling), go to: http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/complete_report/cbs_response.pdf .

The premiere of 24 on Fox Sunday night from 8-10p drew a solid 6.3/13 A18-49 rating according to fast affiliate ratings from Nielsen Media Research (time period data only), up 34% over last year’s premiere.  Giving Fox a run for its demo points was ABC, returning Sunday night with new episodes of both Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (8.6/19) and Desperate Housewives (11.2/23), winning both hours handily. At 10p, ABC again won the hour by a share point with a 5.6/13 for Boston Legal over NBC’s 5.0/12 for Crossing Jordan. The People’s Choice Awards on CBS founds its largest demo deliveries among W18-49 (4.3/10), and the 50+ crowed (5.5/11).

Tonight’s Finale:
Fox:    The Rebel Billionaire at 8pm
NBC:    The Biggest Loser at 8pm

Casting / Development / Production

• Fox has ordered a drama pilot called Amy Coyne from writer/producer Kevin Falls (West Wing) about a woman who inherits her father’s sports agency following the sudden death of her father.
• TNT‘s drama in development The Closer about a homicide unit that takes on the high profile cases and its female deputy chief, played by Kyra Sedgwick, is expected to get its pick up orders for 13 eps and a start date for this summer, per Hollywood Reporter.
• Per Daily Variety, NBC Universal has signed Principato-Young Entertainment to a 5-year development deal to create and develop sitcoms for NBC Universal Television.
• At first, the idea of a comedy based in the middle of a war, sounds like bad taste, if not just a bad idea.  Then M*A*S*H proved that theory otherwise.  Of course, the Korean War was over by the time M*A*S*H hit the airwaves. HBO is stepping things up a bit with a comedy currently in development from Dave Thomas and Tom Hedrick, called Operation: Desert Sands (HBO Indep Prods). Set in Iraq, it’s about a unit of 300 army engineers sent to get rid of the weapons of mass destruction and were ultimately sent to a remote base.  There they were given no orders, no directives.  The comedy picks up with these 300 official personnel trying to figure out how to keep themselves busy.
• Also at HBO, the network is developing a drama called Fabulous, about a hip-hop artist and his circle of friends, per Variety. The drama follows the successful musician through a life filled with opposites – the smooth sailing high life of success, and the sometimes difficult and violent life of hip hop. Written/exec prod by Michael Elliot in conjunction with hip hop artist Andre Harrell.
• FX has two new additions to the cast – Glenn Close, which you already knew about, and Anthony Anderson, usually noted for his comedic roles (Kangaroo Jack, All About the Andersons).  Anderson plays a freshly out of prison gang leader and drug dealer.

20th Television has cleared its off-net syndicated series 24 in 85% of the country with 109 markets cleared.  New clearances include WCVB/Boston; KSTP/Minneapolis; KPRC/Houston; KSDK/St. Louis and KSHB/Kansas City and KOIN/Portland.  Top market clearances include WCBS/NY; KCBS/LA; WBBM/Chicago; KYW-WPSG/Philadelphia and KPIX-KBHK/San Francisco.  The show is offered as a weekly, straight barter 7/7 split.

Program Partners inked a worldwide distribution deal with Canada’s Thunderbird Films, Inc. for its Da Vinci’s Inquest series currently in its 7th season on CBC.  The 91 one-hour episodes follow the Coroner Dominic Da Vinci in his work to find the suspicious causes of death in his city.

AIM Tell-A-Vision is aiming a new show titled Play More TV to bring in the video gamer audience with its debut scheduled for fall 2005.  The syndicated weekly show will center on a virtually hosted, magazine-style format with relevant news updates, reviews, game shortcuts, new tech pieces, trends and releases as well as the gamers themselves.  The Maximas Productions-produced Play More TV is exec produced by Robert Rose and supervised by Renzo Devia.

Toronto Casting Call: Toy manufacturer Spin Master Ltd. (Air Hogs, Aquadoodle, Hershey’s Smores Maker, Mighty Beanz etc) will hold an open audition for girls 13-19 yrs old, January 15, from 9a in Toronto, at Elgin Theatre (stage door entrance 158).  Spin Master is looking to cast the new real life Bella Dancerella for a series of how-to dance videos produced by the company.  Those who want to audition should come prepared to dance, act and perform a song (with sheet music in the appropriate key in hand).  Introduced for holiday 2004, Bella Dancerella was on Toy Wishes Magazine’s list of the Hot Dozen Toys 2004.  For further info, contact: Kasia Zeniuk, Spin Master Ltd,

Sundance Channel has announced Laura Michalchyshyn has been named EVP/Programming & Marketing, based in New York and reporting to founder Robert Redford, and Pres/CEO Larry Aidem.  Laura makes the move to Sundance from Alliance Atlantis Comm where she was SVP/Dramatic Programming.  In her new position she will be responsible for all creative expressions of the Sundance Channel brand, both on and off-Channel, including original programming, film acquisition, program planning, on-air promotion and the creative strategy and implementation of all off-Channel consumer marketing.

Eric Thorkilsen will join Scripps Networks as SVP/Business Development, as of January 17, reporting to John Lansing, Scripps Networks President. Eric will be responsible for developing new business opportunities across all existing Scripps Networks media platforms, which include the popular lifestyle television networks HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network, and FINE LIVING as well as electronic retailer Shop At Home and county music network Great American Country (GAC).

Following the appointment of Thorkilsen, comes the restructuring of Great American Country (GAC), which was acquired by Scripps back in November 2004. Scott Durand has been named VP/Operations, and Sarah Trahern will join the network as VP/President of Programming. Scott will focus on the day-to-day operations of the production area while continuing to oversee marketing and public relations for GAC.

New Line Cinema has made two new hires in their licensing and merchandising division: Ed Bolkus as VP/Product Development and Merchandising, responsible for overseeing all aspects of product development and creative approvals in categories including apparel, home furnishings, collectibles and paper goods, as well as management of style guide development and trade show exhibitions; and Lourdes Arocho as Director/International Licensing and Merchandising, overseeing international product development and licensed promotions.. The announcement came from David Imhoff, Sr. EVP/Worldwide Licensing and Merchandising. 

Joel Silverman assumed the role of VP/Sales & Distribution, Virgin Mobile USA, LLC.  As the new head of the group Silverman will be responsible for Virgin Mobile’s sales organization and continuing to expand its customer base and retail partner relationships.  Most recently Silverman was Virgin Mobile’s sales director.  Prior to Virgin Mobile, Silverman served as COO/CFO, Blades Board & Skate, the youth retail action sports merchandise and retailer.

As in previous years, this January Cynopsis will provide its NATPE Syndicated Program Guide listing of NEW SERIES only coming to market in preparation for this year’s conference in Las Vegas.  If you have information you’d like listed for a new strip or weekly series, please send it to me at
(with NATPE listing in the subject line), and provide the name of the series, #/eps, distributor name/phone/booth or suite number, terms (cash, cash+, barter split), and frequency.  Because of space, no OTOs, specials, movie packages, quarterly shows or returning series are included in the listing. For Children’s Programming, please send your new series information (please add if its live action/animation and target age group) to Gwen Billings for the Cynopsis Kids NATPE Syndicated Program Guide at
.   The deadline for submissions is January 14; the Syndicated Guides will be sent to all subscribers on Wednesday, January 19, the week before the convention.

Sunday, January 9, 2005. Fast Affiliate Ratings for all Networks – time period averages only.  Source: Nielsen Media Research.
[p] = Premiere; [r] = Repeat

FOX     10.8/16  Wildcard NFL Game 14.9/23, 24 (premiere – part 1; 8-10p) 8.7/13

ABC     10.3/16  AFV 5.7/9, EM: Home Edition 11.2/16, Desperate Housewives 15.1/22, Boston Legal 9.4/15

CBS     7.9/12   60 Minutes 7.8/12, Cold Case 10.2/15, People’s Choice Awards 6.8/10

NBC     7.1/11   Dateline 5.5/9, American Dreams 4.5/7, Law & Order: CI 8.6/12, Crossing Jordan 9.8/16

WB      1.8/3    Steve Harvey 1.5/2, WB Movie Special: There’s Something About Mary 2.0/3

A18-49  Fox 7.4/17, ABC 7.2/17, CBS and NBC 3.3/8, WB 1.2/3

A MESSAGE FROM COURT TV

Court TV’s Miss X offers advice on romance and cable TV…

The History Channel presents This Day in History:
1935 – With her Atlantic solo voyage behind her, Amelia Earhart Putmam became the first person to journey alone via airplane from Hawaii to California

Answer to Yesterday’s Trivia Question courtesy of New Line Television:  Which Oscar winner and star of Secondhand Lions, made his film debut in the 1962 classic, To Kill a Mockingbird? ROBERT DUVALL – and let me just say, congratulations to the entire free world on this one!  Several hundred of you chimed in with the correct answer, and Kudos to these , the second four correct in each time zone:  Jim Scalem-Jim Scalem Productions/NY; Stephanie Jo Klein-Klein Creative Comm/NY; Cindy Wilhite-WNDY/Indianapolis; Jason Lewis-WTAT/Charleston; Jack Hodgson-Oklahoma State Univ/Stillwater; Greg Armstrong-KTVD/Denver; Barbara Pointer-Abtex Beverage, ABG Agency/Abilene; Kenny Mueller-NCC/Dallas; Gina Gold/LA; Aaron Paquette-OTX: Online Testing Exchange/Hollywood; Steve Matela-Eurocinema/San Diego; Kelly McAuliffe-Variety/LA; Stacy Mayzell-Alliance Atlantis/Toronto; Brook Peters-YTV/Toronto.

A MESSAGE FROM COURT TV

Dear Miss X,

Today’s Trivia Question:  When the tag line says, “Nothing comes closer to home”, to whom or what does it refer? (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
01.11.06

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WHAT’S ON TONIGHT:  JANUARY 11, 2005:

ABC              My Wife & Kids, George Lopez, According to Jim, Rodney, NYPD Blue
CBS              NCIS, Amazing Race, Judging Amy
FOX              The Rebel Billionaire [finale]
NBC              Biggest Loser [finale], Committed, Law & Order: SVU
PAX              World Cup Comedy, Early Edition, Cold Turkey
UPN              All of Us, Eve, Veronica Mars
WB               Gilmore Girls [r], High School Reunion
TELE             La Mujer en el Espejo, Gitanas, Te Voy a Ensenar a Querer
UNIV             Rubi, Amor Real, Casos de la Vida Real

A MESSAGE FROM TEAM TWIN TOWERS INC.

To Support, Promote and Encourage the restoration of the World Trade Center in a responsible, thoughtful and caring manner and to ensure an appropriate memorial honoring those we lost. Visit us at www.teamtwintowers.org Sign our petition, make a donation, and volunteer services. See our new CD “Inspiration New York” on our homepage. Non Profit 501c4.