CYNTHIA TURNER’S
CYNOPSIS

01/27/04

Good morning. It’s Tuesday, January 27, 2004, and this is your first early morning briefing. 

NBC‘s Golden Globe Awards won the night on Sunday with a solid 8.5/20 overall according to A18-49 fast affiliate ratings from Nielsen Media Research.  CBS was second with a 3.5/8, followed by Fox 3.4/8, ABC 2.4/6, WB 1.6/4.  At 7pm NBC’s Arrival Special down the red carpet drew 4.4/12. ABC, CBS and Fox were in a tight race for #2 at 7pm – AFV 3.3/9, 60 Minutes 2.9/8 and back to back King of the Hill  2.7/7.  At 8pm the Golden Globes jumped up to 9.7/22, Fox’s Simpsons did well in spite of the awards with a 4.3/10, followed by Cold Case on CBS drawing a 3.9/9.  At 9p the awards continue to climb to 10.4/23, leaving CBS and Fox to duke it out (3.6/8 v. 3.3/7 respectively).  At at 10p the awards finished the night with a 9.6/23, well ahead of CBS’ final hour of its 9p movie which pulled a 3.7/9 overall.  The for the evening, the Golden Globes averaged a 9.9/23.

Outdoor Life Network has picked up the cable television rights to the Gravity Games from Octagon Inc., beginning with the September 2004 games featuring 225 athletes from 13 countries competing 9 events.  A 2005 Winter Gravity Games are currently in the planning stages and will ultimately be included in the OLN deal.

A&E is reportedly chatting with Southwest Airlines to do a second season of its reality series Airline.  The show is currently in the midst of its first 18-episode season which kicked off earlier this month.

New in Development:

• Fox has ordered up a pilot of Point Pleasant (Original TV/20th Century Fox TV), which sounds a little reminiscent of an ominous Twin Peaks peek at a small town where one day, upsetting the natural order of things, a body rolls in with the tide. Fox has already wrapped principal photography on a two-ep reality show called The Littlest Groom – think The Bachelor but with Little People, according to Variety.  The rest is about what you’d expect from any ‘oh pick me’ reality show, only the twist here is whether or not the bachelor will chose from among the little women presented to him, or will he chose an average height woman. The Littlest Groom (Fox/LMNO)  is set to air on February 15 at 8pm as lead0in to My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance; and both reality shows will air their final eps in tandem the following week, Feb 23 beginning at 8pm.
• CBS has ordered a pilot of The Amazing Westerbergs (Sony Pictures TV/CBS Prods), about two brothers living in the big city who believe without question they can do anything they set their hearts out to do, only life doesn’t seem to be cooperating.
• ABC has signed newlywed Nick Lachey to star in a pilot, a variety special along with his wife Jessica, and a feature film.  Jessica is already under a development deal to star in a pilot. Whether they’ll end up in the same pilot remains to be seen.
• Lifetime has signed Leeza Gibbons to host Season #2 of What Should You Do? (44 Blue Prods),a reality series that helps viewers know what to do in a difficult and even dangerous situations.

What will you watch when Survivor: All Stars goes head to head with The Apprentice? Which Mark Burnett show do you prefer?  Let’s make it easier — the two shows will overlap for just 15 minutes – that is the final 15m of Survivor vs. the first 15m of an NBC Thursday night Supersized Apprentice.  Yeah, me too.  And it will happen twice during sweeps, Feb 5 and 12.  You’d think the Burnett would try to work some sort of deal wherein his shows would not compete with each other,and  according to Variety, you’d be right. NBC and Burnett shook hands on just that point, but in this instance, Burnett apparently is on board with the creative scheduling.

According to Australia’s Herald Sun, there is an Australian reality show in the works wherein 200 single women and 100 rich men are put together on an island (not deserted, plenty of good food, housing, etc.), just to see what happens over the course of two weeks.  To be sure the men are indeed rich men, they are being charged a fee to participate ($12,500 each). Fantasy Island -Reality TV is being filmed next month on the island of South Molle. As for the women, they won’t be charged a fee, but they do have to get themselves to the Brisbane, where in turn they will be taken by charter to the island.

Steve Mulderrig has been upped to EVP/Domestic and Cable Sales, of Tribune Entertainment Company, effective immediately.  The announcement was made by Dick Askin, president and CEO of Tribune Entertainment.  Steve will assume additional responsibilities outside of overseeing all program sales activities on behalf of the company, including formal management of all program distribution rights Tribune Entertainment acquired from Hearst Entertainment last year; oversight of production on several of the weekly series from both Tribune Entertainment and Hearst; and overall management of the company’s Chicago production office.  Cheers Steve!

Joe Kanellitsas has been named VP/On-Air Promotion for VH1, reporting to Nigel Cox-Hagan, SVP/On-Air Promotion, who also made the announcement.  Joe will be responsible for all on-air components on VH1 including promotion, image branding and ID’s. In addition, he oversees the entire on-air creative staff of producers and writers.  Also at VH1, Greg Efird has been named VP/Programming and Production, reporting to Jason Hirschhorn, SVP/Digital Music & Media for the MTV Networks Music Group.  Greg is responsible for managing all producers at VH1.com and the supervision of three additional VH1.com departments: editorial, design and product development.

Beware of Computer Viruses: There seems to be a computer virus running about that comes with the subject line Hi, Hello, Test, Server Report, Status, Error, Mail Transaction Failed and it may also include an attachment with any number of file extension names.  I received this approx 60 times yesterday from Cynopsis subscribers, so while the email and name were familiar, receiving an attachment from many of them seemed out of place. Rule of thumb – never but never open an attachment unless you know who sent it and that they in fact intended to send it.  My Norton anti-virus is picking up and quarantining many of these, but keep a look out nonetheless.  According to Norton, this worm will send itself to the folks in your address book, will keep a backdoor open to your system which allows unauthorized remote access to your system.  It is also classified as ‘easily contained’, and will not delete files, and is set up to stop spreading on February 12.  In the meantime however, its spreading fast enough to jam up some major systems, so get your delete key oiled up.

Sunday, January 25, 2004. Fast Affiliate Ratings for all Networks. Fast affiliate numbers which reflect time period data, not program data, and can change slightly once the finals come in, particularly for LIVE programming (i.e. Football). Source Nielsen Media Research. Time Period Averages Only. [p] = Premiere; [o] = Original; [r] = Repeat

NBC     14.8/22 Golden Globes Arrival Special 8.4/13; Golden Globe Awards 16.9/25

CBS     8.5/13  60 Minutes 10.3/16, Cold Case 9.7/14, Movie: Deep Impact 7.0/11

FOX     4.4/7   King of the Hill 3.2/5, King of the Hill 3.8/6, Simpsons 5.9/9, Bernie Mac 4.6/7, Malcolm 5.0/7, Arrested Development 3.8/6

ABC     4.3/6   AVF 5.5/9, 10-8 3.9/6, Alias 3.1/4, The Practice 4.8/8

WB      2.3/3   Smallville 2.0/3, Charmed 2.6/4, Surreal Life 2.2/3

A18-49  NBC 8.5/20, CBS 3.5/8, Fox 3.4/8, ABC 2.4/6, WB 1.6/4

A MESSAGE FROM COURT TV

The History Channel presents This Day in History: 
1927 – United Independent Broadcasters Inc. started a radio network of 16 stations. The company later became Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).

Answer to yesterday’s Trivia Question:   You may know him a the captain of his own spaceship, or as a police sergeant, but William Shatner was also an undercover officer and master of disguise working for the government in this television western series.  What was the series? BARBARY COAST, Shatner was Jeff Cable.  Kudos to:  Brenda Michael-WNDY/Indianapolis; Christopher Schultze-Superstation WGN/NY; Peter Gordon-The Golf Channel/Orlando; Christina Owen-Millenia 3 Comm/Atlanta; Wil Allmendinger-Tribune Media Services/Chicago; Dale Warshaw-KWBA/Tucson; Katherine Lawrence-Word Magik Prods/Tucson; Kathie Bowers-KECI/Missoula; Lance Hanish-LBC/Santa Monica; Phil Kane-KSTW/Seattle; Patrick Clark-G4 Network/LA; Tom Zappala-ABC Family/LA.

Today’s Trivia Question:  This famous sitcom house was originally built in the mid 1940s for motion pictures settings. A facade in act, the ‘house’ appeared in several movies including So Goes My Love (1946); All I Desire (1953); The Brass Bottle (1964); The Ballad of Josie (1967); Coogan’s Bluff (1968); Dragnet (1987); and The Burbs (1989). It was also seen in the Alfred Hitchcock television series on an episode titled “Bang, You’re Dead,” and as the Lake Tahoe residence on the sitcom SHIRLEY/NBC/1979-80. The house was originally built on Colonial Street on the back lot of Universal Studios, sugar-borrowing distance from the Cleaver house on Leave it to Beaver. Since the sixties, the house has been uprooted and moved to another section of the back lot and is now nearly unrecognizable to tourists in search of the original series home. What sitcom family lived in this house?  (
to respond to the trivia question and please be sure to include with your answer your name, company, city and time zone. Only the second four correct responses from each time zone will be listed in tomorrow’s kudo list.)

Later — Cyn

Cynthia Turner’s Cynopsis
01/27/04  5:21am
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WHAT’S ON TONIGHT:  TUESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2004

COURT TV:       I-Zone, Forensic Files, House of Clues, Chasing Freedom
ABC             8 Simple Rules, I’m With Her, According to Jim, Less Than perfect, Line of Fire
CBS             Navy NCIS [r], The Guardian, Judging Amy [r]
FOX             American Idol, 24
NBC             Tracy Morgan Show, Whoopi [r], Dateline Special: NH Primary, Law & Order: SVU [r]
PAX             AFV, Early Edition, Diagnosis Murder
UPN             One on One, All of Us, Top Model
WB              Gilmore Girls, One Tree Hill
TELE            Amor Descardo, El Alma Herida, Mujeres Apasionadas
UNIV            Velo de Novia, Te Amaré en Silencio, Casos de la Vida Real