CYNTHIA TURNER’S
Cynopsis

07/13/05

Good morning.  It’s Wednesday, July 13, 2005, and this is your first early morning briefing.

TV broadcasters told a Senate Commerce Committee in Washington DC yesterday that they could work with a 2009 deadline to fully convert to digital broadcasting.  Whether or not the broadcasters are ready by 2009, the question remains will consumers be ready?  Not all US television can receive digital signals without a digital tuner.  All TVs sold from July 1, 2007 forward will be required to include digital tuners, but that doesn’t mean the general TV population will have them.  Therefore, while broadcasters will be ready in 2009, they won’t actually flip the digital switch until 85% of consumers have the new digital-capable TV sets. 

Tonight’s Premiere:
ABC:  Brat Camp at 8p

And if you’re in the middle of watching your daytime stories today around 3:51pm, plan on an interruption.  The major broadcast and cable news networks will likely turn away for the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery from Cape Canaveral.  Coverage is expected to last for approx 30 minutes for the broadcasters, with expanded coverage on cable expected.

As of the first week in September, PBS will begin providing content via the internet.  NerdTV, available only on the PBS.org website, is the network’s first downloadable series, starring tech columnist Robert Cringley and his interviews with various people from the technology world. Guests planned for the series include Max levchin, co-founder of Paypal, and Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems.  Thirteen 60m weekly shows are planned.

CBS Digital Media and CBS News announced their plan to expand CBSNews.com, creating a 24-hour, multi-platform broadband digital news network.  The plan takes CBS News from TV and Radio to a 24/7 on-demand news service that will include the “Public Eye” blog, and home page video of more than 25,000 news clips.

Program Change:  Discovery Channel’s debut of Firehouse USA: Boston was originally set for July 26, and has now been pushed back to the Fall.

There’s only one place where hurricanes can bring good news … The Weather Channel pulled in 1.3 million households (total day) on Sunday, the day Hurricane Dennis made landfall, earning a 1.4 HH rtg, besting Fox News for the same 5a-2a time frame.  The high point was at 3:15pm quarter hour when Weather earned a 3.3 rtg and 2.9 million households.

The fourth season debut of Monk last Friday night on USA drew 6.4 million viewers, up 15% from last year’s season premiere.

Lifetime‘s original movie Murder in the Hamptons drew a 4.4 HH Rtg for its 9p premiere on Monday night.  That is good enough to give this film the ranking of cable’s highest rated original movie for the calendar year (tied with another Lifetime movie, Odd Girl Out). Among total viewers, Murder in the Hamptons pulled in 4.8 million viewers.

Correction :  Comedy Central’s acquisition of Scrubs is for Fall 2006, not 2005 as mentioned here yesterday.

Top Ten Basic Cable Ad Supported Network Rankings among Total Viewers for the week of July 4-10, 2005:
Primetime      (000)    Total Pgm Day   (000)
TNT                  2642       NICK                    2025
USA                  2325      NAN*                    1761
TBS                  1962      ADULT SWIM*     1445
NAN                  1939      CARTOON           1410
LIFETIME          1938     TNT                       1304
FOXNEWS       1752     LIFETIME              1158
CARTOON       1554      FOXNEWS          1119
SPIKE               1524     USA                      1077
SCIFI                 1304     TBS                      1069
ABC FAMILY      1241     MTV                     829
 Source: Turner Research from Nielsen Media Research Data.
All ratings based on Total U.S. Television Universe of 109,600,000 homes
* = Network broadcasts less than 51% of minutes in a 24 hour day. Primetime listing only includes those networks broadcasting more than 51% of the primetime hours (M-Su 8p-11p)

Top Ten Basic Cable Ad Supported Network Rankings among A18-49 for the week of July 4-10, 2005:
Primetime     (000)     Total Pgm Day   (000)
TBS                1070         NAN*                     733
TNT                1027         TBS                       623
USA                  996         ADULT SWIM*      603
LIFETIME         785         TNT                        589
SPIKE TV         770         LIFETIME               530
SCIFI                 690        USA                        530
FX                     688         NICK                      463
MTV                   604        MTV                       405
ABC FAMILY     550         FX                          383
NAN                  543         SPIKE                    367
Source: Turner Research from Nielsen Media Research Data.
All ratings based on Total U.S. Television Universe of 109,600,000 homes
* = Network broadcasts less than 51% of minutes in a 24 hour day. Primetime listing only includes those networks broadcasting more than 51% of the primetime hours (M-Su 8p-11p)

Top 10 Cable Programs among A18-49 (000) for the week of July 4-10, 2005:
USA      MONK                               2517
SPK     WWE (MON 10P)            2178
MTV     REAL WORLD               2131
TBS     LEGALLY BLONDE (7/9)  1952
VH1     HOGAN KNOWS BEST    1942
TBS     LEGALLY BLONDE (7/10 8P)  1777
TBS     LEGALLY BLONDE (7/10 10P) 1770
MTV     THE 70’S HOUSE               1721
SPK     WWE (MON 9P)                  1690
USA     DEAD ZONE                        1673
Source: Turner Research from Nielsen Media Research Data.
All ratings based on Total U.S. Television Universe of 109,600,000 homes

Top 10 Broadcast Programs among A18-49 Rtg for the week of 7/4-10, 2005:
ABC:     DANCING/STARS                          6.7/19
CBS:     CSI                                                 4.8/14
CBS:    BIG BROTHER                              3.4/11
CBS:    WITHOUT A TRACE                      3.4/10
FOX:    FAMILY GUY (7/10 @ 930p)          3.3/9
FOX:    FAMILY GUY                                  3.2/9
CBS:    CSI NY                                           3.1/9
NBC:    LAW & ORDER SVU                    3.0/9
FOX:     SIMPSONS                                    2.8/9
ABC:    DANCING/STARS 7/6                   2.7/9
FOX:     HOUSE                                          2.7/8
Source:  Nielsen Media Research, Galaxy Explorer

Fox:

• The O.C. (Wonderland Sound & Vision/Warner Bros. TV) will get a new resident next season – Jeri Ryan joins the cast in a recurring role.

ABC:

• Million Dollar Idea (FremantleMedia) has been ordered up by ABC, a new reality series seeking to identify the next big idea from a thus far unrecognized entrepreneur.  According to Variety, three judges will be pitched ideas by wannabe inventors (a la American Idol auditions), who will cull the group down to nine finalists.  Those nine will each receive $50k in seed money to bring their big idea to fruition.  Eventually, the final three finalists will be voted on by viewers.  Winner gets a million bucks, and perhaps a chance to see their big idea on store shelves.

New Development Deals:

• Lions Gate Television has signed Rob Lee to a one year development deal to create new programming for bcst and cable tv.  The deal calls for Lee to have a particular focus on reality programming, given his credits – Blow Out, Minding the Store and Welcome to the Neighborhood.
• Sony Pictures Television has signed director/producer Michael Dinner to a one year deal where he will create and direct projects for the studio.
• VH1 has signed Surreal Life producers Mark Cronin and Cris Abrego to a two year, seven series production deal.  Included in those seven series are three new editions of The Surreal Life and spinoff My Fair Brady with Christopher Knight (The Brady Bunch) and Adrianne Curry (winner of America’s Next Top Model), per Variety.

Robert G. Friedman will step down from his post as COO/Vice Chairman of the Paramount Motion Picture Group to pursue other interests.  Commenting on Friedman’s departure, Brad Grey, Chairman & CEO, Paramount Pictures said, “Rob has made many valuable contributions to Paramount’s history. When he told me several months ago that he wanted to move on, I asked him to stay on and open War Of The Worlds, he agreed, created a fantastic campaign, and the movie was Paramount’s best opening ever. We thank him for his many years of dedication and hard work here at the studio and wish him the very best.”  Friedman joined the studio in 1997 as Vice Chairman/Motion Picture Group; he was subsequently named COO in 2002. He oversaw all domestic and international marketing, publicity, and distribution operations for the studio, as well as Paramount Home Entertainment and Paramount Classics.

BET has named Reginald Hudlin as President of Entertainment, and Chief Programming Executive for the network’s entertainment, home entertainment, music, news, specials, sports, public affairs, program and film acquisitions and programming development divisions.  The prolific filmmaker will be based both in BET’s LA programming division, New York’s production facility and its Washington headquarters. 

Michael Weisman, veteran sports producer and most recently exec prod of The Jane Pauley Show, has been named Executive Producer with the NBC Universal Television Group.  Michael will act as exec prod for a variety of programs under the NBC Universal Television Group slate, particularly in the areas of news, sports and live event programming.  He reports to Jeff Zucker.

GREAT! has announced that Billie Dunn has joined on as Marketing Manager in its Nashville office. She joins from Nashville radio stations WWTN-FM and WNFN-FM where she was Promotions Director.

Laura Danford Mandel has been promoted to VP/Publicity, Telepictures Productions, it was announced by Hilary Estey McLoughlin, EVP/GM, Telepictures Productions. Laura will be responsible for overseeing the overall publicity strategy and day-to-day consumer and trade publicity activities of all of Telepictures Productions’ television series, including, first-run syndication, network and cable.

NEP Broadcasting has named Bart R. Huchel as Chief Financial Officer.  Bart will be responsible for the fiscal management of all divisions of NEP including NEP Supershooters, NEP Denali, NEP Screenworks, NEP Studios and NEP Visions which is located in the United Kingdom.  NEP is a provider of outsourced media services necessary to the delivery of live sports and entertainment events.

Atlas Media Corp. has named Kaki Kirby to the newly created position of SVP/Business Development and Special Projects. Kaki will be responsible for all of Atlas’ sales, marketing and development efforts, reporting to Bruce David Klein, Atlas’ President & Executive Producer.

Monday–A18-49 Analysis:   Fox won the night on Monday with an overall 3.0/9 A18-49 rating according to fast affiliate numbers from Nielsen Media Research.  Fox’s 2-hour Hell’s Kitchen delivered a 2.8/9 for hte first hour and a 3.2/9 at 9p. CBS began with back to back repeats sitcoms earning a 2.1/7, and then the debut of Rock Star: INXS earned a 2.4/7 A18-49 rating, and a 2.1/6 A18-34.  CBS won the 10p hour with a 2.5/7 for CSI: Miami.

Fast Affiliate Ratings: Monday July  11, 2005, for all Networks – time period averages.  Source: Nielsen Media Research. 

CBS     4.8/8    Raymond [r] 5.4/10, Two and a Half Men [r] 5.4/9,  Rock Star: INXS [p] 3.8/6, CSI: Miami [r] 5.2/9

NBC    3.9/6    Fear Factor [r] 3.1/6,  Las Vegas [r] 4.0/6, Medium [r] 4.5/7

FOX    3.8/6    Hell’s Kitchen [2hr]  3.8/6

ABC     3.7/6   The Scholar 2.6/5, Movie:  Meet The Parents 4.3/7

WB      1.73    7th Heaven [r] 1.7/3, Summerland 1.7/3

UPN     1.6/3   One on One [r] 1.5/3, All of Us [r] 1.6/3, Girlfriends [r] 1.8/3, Half and Half [r] 1.6/3

A18-49            Fox 3.0/9, CBS 2.3/7, NBC 2.0/6, ABC 1.8/5, WB and UPN 0.9/3

The History Channel presents This Day in History:
1836 – John Ruggles of Thomaston, Maine receives patent #1 from the U.S. Patent Office, for a traction wheel used in locomotive steam engines.  Ruggles, a U.S. senator from Maine, was the author of the 1836 Patent Act, which, among other things, began numbering US patents.  Prior to this date, 9,957 non-numbered patents had been issued.

Answer to Yesterday’s trivia question: What well known actor was disqualified from the Navy’s pilot training program during World War II because he was color blind?  PAUL NEWMAN   Kudos to:  Ken Healy-Sunfish Consulting Group/Livingston NJ; Tracy Pruzan-Sony Pictures TV/NY; Anne Dalin-Dalin Entertainment/Edison NJ; Tony Gilbert-Wendy’s Int’l/Dublin OH; Mike Hertz-141 Worldwide/Chicago; Brett Calvert-KSAT/San Antonio; Angela Newby-Spot Plus/Dallas; Rosemary Cunningham-MMT/Chicago; Joe Feldman-Effective Media Services/LA; Walter Willkomm-KTLA/Los Angeles; B Kearns-Good Story Production-Pacific Palisades; Muhammad Eldereiny-RPA/Santa Monica.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM COURT TV

Today’s Trivia Question:  What film did Walt Disney use as the basis for the Disneyland’s “Jungle Cruise” attraction?  (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’ve been mentioned in any of the Cynopsis editions, you can’t be mentioned again that calendar week.)

Later — Cyn
07.13.05  – 5:03am
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WHAT’S ON TONIGHT:  Wednesday, July 13, 2005

ABC              Brat Camp [2hrs] [p], Lost
CBS              The Cut, The King of Queens [r], Rock Star, CSI: NY [r]
FOX              That 70’s Show, Stacked, The Inside
NBC              Outrageous TV Moments [2hrs], Law & Order [r], Law & Order [r]
PAX              Doc,  Diagnosis Murder, Early Edition
UPN              Eve[r], Eve [r], Veronica Mars [r]
WB               Beauty and the Geek The Aftermath Special, Smallville [r]
TELE             La Mujer en el Espejo, Los Plateados,  Decisiones
UNIV             Apuesta  por un Amor, La Marastra,  Copa Oro