Time Running Out For Sutherland’s 24?

Filed under: Kiefer Sutherland, TV News

Executives at TV network Fox have decided to end their long-running hit 24 after the current series, according to a new report.

Studio bosses are planning to axe the real time show, which stars Kiefer Sutherland as a federal agent, after eight seasons following a decrease in ratings and a spike in production costs.

A final decision is expected to be made in the next week, reports Variety.com.

A cancellation won’t spell the end of 24 – Hollywood bosses have commissioned screenwriter Billy Ray to adapt the show for the big screen.

The film will reportedly see Sutherland in action in Europe.

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Hall Of Fame Football Player, Actor Merlin Olsen Dies

Filed under: R.I.P., Sports News, TV News

The Fearsome Foursome has lost one of its members. Merlin Olsen, a Pro Bowler in 14 of his 15 seasons as a defensive lineman for the Los Angeles Rams, has died at the age of 69.

Olsen was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2009 and had undergone chemotherapy. The turf at the football stadium at Utah State, where he was an Outland Trophy winner, recently was named Merlin Olsen Field.

Olsen missed only two games in his career, and shared the Fearsome Foursome billing with Deacon Jones, Rosey Grier and Lamar Lundy. In 1999 Sports Illustrated ranked him No. 25 on its list of 100 greatest NFL players.

He also had a successful career in television, as Michael Landon’s sidekick on Little House on the Prairie, and as a masquerading priest in Father Murphy.

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Latest Oscar Telecast Most Watched In Five Years

Filed under: Alec Baldwin, Awards, TV News

Sunday night’s Oscars drew 41.3 million U.S. viewers, up 5 million from last year and the biggest audience for the Academy Awards in five years, the Nielsen Company reported on Monday.

The average viewership tally for the 3 1/2-hour-plus live broadcast on ABC, a unit of the Walt Disney Co, also marked the second straight year of Nielsen gains for the film industry’s annual celebration.

Co-hosted by comic stars Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin — the first pair of emcees to share the stage since Oscar came to television — the show drew middling reviews from critics, some of whom found the broadcast awkwardly paced.

Oscar organizers had sought to broaden the public appeal by doubling the number of films nominated for best picture from the usual five to 10, thus including more movies seen by mass audiences in the awards sweepstakes.

In the end, a low-budget Iraq war drama that was largely an arthouse favorite, “The Hurt Locker,” was the evening’s biggest winner, picking up six prizes in all, including Oscars for best film and best director.

But the presence among the contenders of “Avatar,” the highest-grossing movie of all time, and its front-runner status in the race was likely the single biggest factor in the boosting the Oscars’ ratings performance on Sunday night.

‘AVATAR BUZZ’

The inclusion of other mainstream favorites such as family films “The Blind Side” and “Up,” which were unlikely to have made it into a five-way best-picture contest in previous years, almost certainly gave an additional lift to the ratings.

Nielsen said “Avatar” dominated “online buzz” surrounding the nominated films ahead of the Oscars, accounting for nearly 25 percent of Internet conversations about movies last week.

The ratio of commercial hits to arthouse fare in the Oscars race has long influenced the show’s ratings success.

The most-watched Oscar broadcast on record was in 1998, when Cameron’s last box-office blockbuster, “Titanic,” sailed off with a record-tying 11 awards, including the prize for best picture, in a show watched by some 55 million Americans.

By contrast, 2008’s 80th anniversary of the Academy Awards, dominated by European stars and films that played poorly at box offices, entered record books as the least-watched Oscar show ever, averaging just 32 million U.S. viewers. That year’s big winner was the grim crime thriller “No Country for Old Men.”

The Oscars’ hefty audience growth from 2009, when “Slumdog Millionaire” was crowned best picture and 36.3 million U.S. viewers watched, follows a trend of double-digit, year-to-year growth for other major award shows, including the Golden Globes, the Grammys and People’s Choice Awards, Nielsen said.

That pattern suggests another factor may be at work — a renewed interest in big-event TV broadcasts at a time when audiences are increasingly fragmented by the proliferation of cable channels and the Internet.

The last time the Academy Awards averaged more viewers than Sunday night was in 2005, when 42.1 million tuned in to see the boxing drama “Million Dollar Baby” named best picture.

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Will and Grace Star Confirms He’s Gay

Filed under: Gay Issues, No Shit Sherlock, TV News

Another one for the NO SHIT SHERLOCK department:

Sean Hayes, who played flamboyant Jack McFarland on NBC’s Will and Grace for eight years, has publicly confirmed his sexuality for the first time.

The resolutely private actor recently gave his first interview to gay newsmagazine The Advocate after many denied requests.

The Advocate and other media had long criticized Hayes, 39, for not confirming what many have called the “open secret” of his sexual orientation.

“Really? You’re gonna shoot the gay guy down? I never have had a problem saying who I am,”

Hayes says in the new cover story.

“I am who I am. I was never in, as they say. Never,”

he states.

The actor, about to star in the Broadway musical Promises, Promises with Kristen Chenowith, still bristles at the idea that he was somehow obligated to come out earlier.

“Nobody owes anything to anybody,” he says. “You are your authentic self to whom and when you choose to be, and if you don’t know somebody, then why would you explain to them how you live your life?”

The star of the popular, Emmy-winning gay sitcom adds,

“I feel like I’ve contributed monumentally to the success of the gay movement in America, and if anyone wants to argue that, I’m open to it.”

Hayes remains hesitant to reveal too much about his personal life, however. ”

I spend time with a special someone in my life,” he says simply. “That’s all I need…I don’t do a lot. I live my life like an 85-year-old man. I’m just quiet. It’s fantastic.”

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ABC Pulled Off Cablevision In NY

Filed under: TV News

From Hollywood Reporter:

After Cablevision and WABC-TV, ABC’s owned and operated station in the nation’s top TV market didn’t make any progress in the their tense negotiations over retransmission consent on Saturday, ABC followed through on its threat to take the station off Cablevision’s systems at 12:01 a.m. ET on March 7, the day of ABC’s broadcast of the Academy Awards.

ABC’s blackout came in the middle of “Lost.” WABC carries “Lost” reruns from 11:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Saturday night, and some viewers took to Twitter when their show went dark in the middle of an episode.

Twitter was also abuzz about a major snafu on Cablevision’s part. Instead of pulling only ABC, the cable operator accidentally took down all broadcast networks on its systems.

Moments after midnight, WABC and Cablevision issued another set of dueling statements pointing fingers at each other for the shutdown.

“Cablevision has once again betrayed its subscribers by losing ABC7, the most popular station in the tri-state area. This follows two years of negotiations, during which we worked diligently, up to the final moments, to reach an agreement,” said WABC’s general manager Rebecca Campbell. “Cablevision pocketed almost $8 billion last year, and now customers aren’t getting what they pay for … again. It’s time for Jim Dolan and the Dolan Family Dynasty to finally step up, be fair, and do what’s right for our viewers.”

In his statement, Charles Schueler, Cablevision’s executive vp communications, said: “It is now painfully clear to millions of New York area households that Disney CEO Bob Iger will hold his own ABC viewers hostage in order to extract $40 million in new fees from Cablevision. We call on Bob Iger to immediately return ABC to Cablevision customers while we continue to work to reach a fair agreement.”

At the heart of the standoff is the retransmission consent fees ABC is seeking from Cablevision for the right to carry its flagship New York station. By using the $40 million figure, Cablevision implies that ABC is looking for a fee of $1 dollar per month per subscriber, the same target that Fox had in its retransmission fight with Time Warner Cable in December.

Cablevision’s counteroffer is said to be around 25 cents.

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Regis and Kelly Help ‘America’s Most Wanted’ Catch a Killer

Filed under: TV News

A murderer placed just last week on the U.S. Marshal’s 15 Most Wanted list is now in custody — thanks to a segment on Friday morning’s Live! with Regis and Kelly.

America’s Most Wanted host John Walsh appeared on Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa’s show to promote the 1000th episode of his FOX series, set to air Saturday; during his Live! segment, a Wanted promo aired, featuring the case of fugitive killer Albert James Turner Jr..

Within hours of the Live! broadcast, a viewer tip led to Turner’s incident-free arrest Friday morning at a Concord, N.H. mall.

A former state corrections officer, Turner stabbed his wife Keitha Turner and mother-in-law Betty Joe Frank in Texas on Dec. 27, 2009; several of his children witnessed the crime. Turner had been on the run ever since.

“Thanks to America’s Most Wanted and a viewer tip, Turner will now get a different perspective of what it is like to be in a prison,” John F. Clark, Director of the U.S. Marshals Service, said in a statement. “The fact that he committed horrible crimes in front of his children makes his capture even more satisfying.”

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Nielsen: Viewers Welcomed Leno

Filed under: Jay Leno, TV News

Nielsen says Jay Leno got a warm welcome from viewers with his return on Monday to “The Tonight Show.”

Preliminary Nielsen Co. ratings from 56 metered markets across the nation give NBC’s “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” a 5.4 rating and a 14 percent share of the viewing audience. That compares with a 3.4 rating and 8 share for ABC’s “Nightline,” and a 3.0 rating and 8 share for CBS’ “Late Show with David Letterman.”

After 17 years, Leno left “Tonight” last May in the hands of new host Conan O’Brien.

O’Brien’s first show ratings last spring were better than Leno’s Monday night return. But O’Brien couldn’t hang onto the viewers, leading to his departure. In the meantime, Leno starred in a weeknight NBC prime-time hour that was canceled for low ratings.

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Jake Chooses Vienna On ABC’s ‘The Bachelor’ Finale

Filed under: Dancing With The Stars, TV News

Jake Pavelka chose Vienna Giraldi on “The Bachelor” finale, concluding his lovey-dovey stint on the ABC reality television show, just as he prepared to join another: “Dancing with the Stars.”

Pavelka revealed his decision on the 14th season finale of “The Bachelor” on Monday night. Going into the episode, he had winnowed 25 contestants down to two women: Giraldi and Tenley Molzahn.

The 32-year-old commercial flight instructor maintained he was in love with both, a feeling they said they reciprocated. But he got down on one knee to propose to Giraldi, who accepted.

“I’m so happy right now!” exclaimed Giraldi, a 23-year-old marketing representative from Geneva, Fla.

But Pavelka had to first break it off with Molzahn, who said her heart felt broken. During the finale, Pavelka suggested that the physical connection wasn’t there with Molzahn.

Looks like he picked the physical attraction over the mental attraction. BAD MOVE!

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TLC Declines To Renew Miss America TV Contract

Filed under: TV News

Miss America’s three year run on TLC is over after the cable network chose not to renew its television contract with the beauty pageant.

TLC declined on Monday to say why it was cutting ties with the 89-year-old competition after the pageant’s broadcast attracted 4.5 million viewers in January – the best showing ever for the pageant on cable.

Sam Haskell, chairman of the Miss America Organization, told The Associated Press that TLC executives indicated one week after the Jan. 30 pageant that they did not want to pick up a three-year option that was part of their previous deal.

Instead, Haskell said TLC wanted a new two-year deal for less money, which he was unwilling to do.

“They’re not dumping Miss America,” Haskell said. “They wanted Miss America – they just didn’t want to pay the same numbers for it that they’d been paying.”

Haskell said four networks, ranging from broadcast to cable channels, have expressed strong interest in airing the pageant and are willing to pay what the TLC option would have paid or higher.

“I’m a big boy, I’ve got broad shoulders – I’ll find us another network,” Haskell said. “I look at this as an opportunity. It doesn’t depress me in the least. We have a great franchise, we have a great audience, we have a great organization.”

The television audience for this year’s pageant was 1 million viewers more than those for the 2009 pageant, but far below the 33 million who watched the pageant on broadcast TV in 1988.

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Dermot Mulroney To Star In ‘Rockford Files’ Update

Filed under: Steve Carell, TV News

Dermot Mulroney is TV’s new Jim Rockford.

In his first regular TV role, Mulroney is set to play the iconic private eye in NBC’s updated take on the hit 1970s drama that starred James Garner in the title role.

The new Jim Rockford is described as “slightly crumpled, wry humored, cynical, world weary, compassionate when it’s called for and easily irritated by morons.”

His troubled past includes includes doing some time as a convict and as a cop.

Aside from an arc on NBC’s “Friends” in 2003, “My Best Friend’s Wedding” co-star Mulroney, repped by ICM, has been focused on features, most recently appearing in “Burn After Reading.”

NBC’s “Rockford Files” was penned by “House” creator David Shore, who is executive producing with Steve Carell.

Another remake they should leave alone. Will anyone out there be able to rise to the iconic heights James Garner did in this role?

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