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(10/02/09 3:57pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>NEW YORK — A CBS News employee is accused of trying to extort $2 million from David Letterman, forcing the late-night host to admit in an extraordinary monologue before millions of viewers that he had sexual relationships with female employees.Letterman said that "this whole thing has been quite scary." But he mixed in jokes while outlining what had happened to him, seeming to confuse a laughing audience at Thursday's taping about whether the story was true.The network said the person who was arrested works on the true-crime show "48 Hours" and has been suspended. A person with knowledge of the investigation said the suspect is Robert J. Halderman. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because authorities have not released the suspect's name.A "48 Hours" producer named Joe Halderman was part of a team nominated for an Emmy for outstanding continuing coverage of a news story in a news magazine in 2008. Two numbers listed for Halderman were disconnected, and a message left at a third number was not immediately returned Thursday.The Manhattan district attorney has scheduled a news conference for late Friday morning to talk about the arrested employee, who the DA says is from Connecticut.Letterman's "Late Show" audience was the first to hear the story, which came as a shock since the 62-year-old Letterman had married longtime girlfriend Regina Lasko in March. The couple began dating in 1986 and have a son, Harry, born in November 2003. Fatherhood and his heart surgery in 2000 had seemed to mellow Letterman, who took over as the most popular late-night comedy host this summer after NBC replaced Jay Leno with Conan O'Brien on the "Tonight" show.Letterman sat behind his desk to outline the scheme after a monologue that targeted some frequent foils like Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney.Three weeks ago, Letterman said, he got in his car early in the morning and found a package with a letter saying, "I know that you do some terrible, terrible things and that I can prove that you do some terrible things." He acknowledged the letter contained proof.He said it was terrifying "because there's something insidious about (it). Is he standing down there? Is he hiding under the car? Am I going to get a tap on the shoulder?"Letterman said he called his lawyer to set up a meeting with the man, who threatened to write a screenplay and a book about Letterman unless he was given money. There were two subsequent meetings, with the man given a phony $2 million check at the last one. Letterman joked it was like the giant ceremonial check given to winners of golf tournaments.He told the audience that he had to testify before a grand jury on Thursday."I was worried for myself, I was worried for my family," he said. "I felt menaced by this, and I had to tell them all of the creepy things that I had done."He said "the creepy stuff was that I have had sex with women who work for me on this show. My response to that is yes, I have. Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Yes, it would, especially for the women."Whether they wanted to make the relationships public was up to them, he said."It's been a very bizarre experience," he said. "I felt like I needed to protect these people. I need to protect my family. I need to protect myself. Hope to protect my job."CBS said in a statement that "we believe his comments speak for themselves."Perhaps as a defense mechanism, Letterman sprinkled his remarks with jokes: "I know what you're saying," he said. "I'll be darned, Dave had sex."He said he wouldn't talk further about it, and recited a Top Ten list. But it wasn't far from his mind. During banter with actor guest Woody Harrelson, Letterman said, "I've got my own problems."It was not immediately clear when the relationships took place or how long they lasted. Letterman's "Late Show" has been on the air since 1993. Before that, "Late Night with David Letterman" aired on NBC from 1982 to 1993.Letterman won't be taping a show Friday. Friday night's show was taped Thursday.Alicia Maxey Greene, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney's office, declined to comment.It's the second set of embarrassing headlines for Letterman in four months. In June, he apologized to Palin for making a crude joke about the former Republican vice presidential candidate's 14-year-old daughter. Although there was a small "fire Letterman" demonstration outside of his studio later, CBS stood by its late-night star.Last fall Letterman sharply denounced Palin's running mate, John McCain, for abruptly canceling a "Late Show" appearance. Weeks of withering jokes by Letterman eventually forced McCain to come on the show and beg for forgiveness.Letterman was also the victim of a 2005 plot by a former painter on his Montana ranch to kidnap his nanny and son for a $5 million ransom. The former painter, Kelly A. Frank, briefly escaped from prison in 2007 before being recaptured.Another alleged extortion scandal surrounding a public figure, Louisville men's basketball coach Rick Pitino, similarly forced him this summer to acknowledge an affair.
(04/13/07 4:00am)
NEW YORK – CBS fired Don Imus from his radio program Thursday, the finale to a stunning fall for one of the nation’s most prominent broadcasters.\nImus initially was given a two-week suspension for calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos” on the air last week, but outrage continued to grow and advertisers bolted from his CBS radio show and its MSNBC simulcast.\n“There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society,” CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said in announcing the decision. “That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision.”\nRutgers women’s basketball team spokeswoman Stacey Brann said the team did not have an immediate comment on Imus’ firing.\nTime Magazine once named the cantankerous broadcaster as one of the 25 Most Influential People in America, and he was a member of the National Broadcaster Hall of Fame.\nBut Imus found himself at the center of a storm as protests intensified. On Wednesday, MSNBC dropped the simulcast of Imus’ show.\nLosing Imus will be a financial hit to CBS Radio, which also suffered when Howard Stern departed for satellite radio. The program is worth about $15 million in annual revenue to CBS, which owns Imus’ home radio station WFAN-AM and manages Westwood One, the company that syndicates the show across the country.\nThe Rev. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson met with Moonves on Thursday to demand Imus’ removal, promising a rally outside CBS headquarters Saturday and an effort to persuade more advertisers to abandon Imus.\nSumner Redstone, chairman of the CBS Corp. board and its chief stockholder, told Newsweek that he had expected Moonves to “do the right thing,” although it wasn’t clear what he thought that was.\nThe news came down in the middle of Imus’ Radiothon, which has raised more than $40 million since 1990. The Radiothon had raised more than $1.3 million Thursday before Imus learned that he lost his job.\n“This may be our last Radiothon, so we need to raise about $100 million,” Imus cracked at the start of the event.\nVolunteers were getting about 200 more pledges per hour than they did last year, with most callers expressing support for Imus, said Tony Gonzalez, supervisor of the Radiothon phone bank. The event benefited Tomorrows Children’s Fund, the CJ Foundation for SIDS and the Imus Ranch.\nImus, whose suspension was supposed to start next week, was in the awkward situation of broadcasting Thursday’s radio program from the MSNBC studios in New Jersey, even though NBC News said the night before that MSNBC would no longer simulcast his program on television.\nHe didn’t attack MSNBC for its decision – “I understand the pressure they were under,” he said – but complained the network was doing some unethical things during the broadcast. He didn’t elaborate.\nHe acknowledged again that his comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball players a day after they had competed in the NCAA championship game had been “really stupid.” He also said he had apologized enough and wasn’t going to whine about his fate.\nSharpton and Jackson emerged from a meeting with Moonves saying the corporate chief had promised to consider their requests.\n“It’s not about taking Imus down,” Sharpton said. “It’s about lifting decency up.”\nSheila Johnson, owner of the WNBA’s Washington Mystics and, with her ex-husband Robert, co-founder of BET, called Imus’ comments reprehensible in an interview with The Associated Press. She said she had called Moonves to urge that CBS cut all ties with the veteran radio star, and was worried that what he said could hurt women’s sports.\n“I think what Imus has done has put a cloud over what we’ve tried to do in promoting women’s athletics,” she said.
(11/16/06 4:55am)
NEW YORK -- It's the Beatles as they never even imagined themselves.\nThe Beatles' "Love" album being released Tuesday is a thorough reinterpretation of their work, with familiar sounds in unfamiliar places, primarily created by the son of the man who was in the control room for virtually all of their recording sessions.\nIt's a mashup, even though Giles Martin said he hates the word. John Lennon sings "he's a real nowhere man" in the background of the instrumental track to "Blue Jay Way." The keyboard of "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" dissolves into the plodding guitar of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)."\n"Strawberry Fields Forever" builds from Lennon's acoustic demo into a psychedelic swirl of sounds that incorporates bits of "Hello Goodbye," "Baby You're a Rich Man," "Penny Lane" and "Piggies."\nThe project was created for a collaboration with Cirque du Soleil and has the endorsement of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the widows of Lennon and George Harrison, Giles Martin said.\n"I had fresh ears -- if you can have fresh ears to the Beatles -- and my job was to make things different," said Giles Martin, born in 1969 as the band was breaking up.\nThe rules were simple: Beatles tracks only, no electronic distortion of what they recorded, and no newly recorded music. The single exception was a string arrangement, written by original Beatles producer George Martin, to accompany an acoustic version of Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."\nOf course, the idea for the album itself distorts songs that fans have been familiar with for 40 years, in some cases. \n"There will be a lot of people pissed off about this," Giles Martin said, "but it was all in fun."\nCount Bob Spitz, author of "The Beatles: The Biography," among the unhappy fans.\n"I'm disappointed," Spitz said. "Not by the end product but by the fact that they are the Beatles' songs, and overdubbing them and massaging them allows other people to impose their own creative ideas on something that was so immediate and of a particular time. I thought that legacy was virtually tamper-proof, until now.\n"Once you meddle with something so fixed in the public's mind you will risk having a failure on the proportion to Twyla Tharp doing Bob Dylan," Spitz said, in a reference to the musical that is closing Sunday after less than a month on Broadway.\nSpitz said the Beatles' company, Apple, has become adept over the past 15 years in putting new twists on the band's catalogue for projects like "Love," which pointedly arrives in stores at the beginning of the holiday shopping season.\nAt the very least, it's a grand guessing game. Where is that instrumental passage from? What will come next?\nGiles Martin, a former jingles writer who has had production or mixing credits on Jeff Beck, Elvis Costello, INXS and Kate Bush albums, likened the project to "going through your dad's closet."\nHe did most of the work at the Abbey Road studios, where the music was originally recorded. His dad, now 80, is hard of hearing and his primary job was to interpret his knowledge of the Beatles, saying whether or not Lennon would have liked something, for instance.\nGiles Martin said he came away impressed with the Beatles' abilities as a unit. Even when cracks were appearing in their personal relationships at the end, you could still hear the chemistry and quality in the music, he said.\nPeriodically, he would invite the two Beatles and two widows to hear what he had done.\n"They didn't have any disagreements," he said. "They really didn't. Yoko was concerned about the quality of John's voice on 'Strawberry Fields Forever' because it was a demo. All they care about is whether it's good or bad."\nDuring a playback of "Come Together," McCartney leaned over to Starr and said, "I remember that. We were really good on that day."\nStarr said hearing the \nfinished product was powerful for him and that "I even heard things I'd forgotten we'd \nrecorded."\nWhen journalists were recently invited into a New York studio to hear Giles Martin play some of the songs, a security guard stood at the entrance to make sure no CDs or recordings snuck out. Beatles received the same treatment, Giles Martin said. They weren't allowed copies of the project in progress, he said.\nAs a producer, Giles Martin said the term "mashup" implies two things rammed together -- like when producer Danger Mouse, now of Gnarls Barkley fame, mixed Jay-Z's "The Black Album" and the Beatles' classic "White Album" for an underground hit. While those types of projects can be good, Giles Martin said they don't stand up to repeated listenings, which he believes is what sets "Love" apart.\nIt was a unique bonding experience for the two Martins. Giles wasn't around to experience those key moments in his father's career, and through "Love," by extension, he was.\n"Without question, it gave me enormous respect for him and them," he said. "His world was laid bare in front of me, as was their playing. We'd smile at each other and say, 'They were really good, weren't they?"
(10/02/06 2:39am)
NEW YORK -- America might be falling for America Ferrera, the star of ABC's "Ugly Betty," an underdog that has become the most-watched new series of the fall television season so far.\nThe comedy, which stars Ferrera as a plain Queens girl who pushed her way into the fashion world, was seen by 16.1 million people in its ABC debut Thursday night, according to Nielsen Media Research.\nAll but about a half-dozen of the 24 new series the broadcast networks are introducing this fall have made it onto the air already, and so far "Ugly Betty" stands at No. 1.\nThe show did it without the advantage of a strong program airing ahead of it. Shows like "Shark" and "Brothers & Sisters" that have had strong debuts were helped because they followed "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "Desperate Housewives." "Ugly Betty" opened the night at 8 p.m. ET.\nIt was ABC's largest audience in the time period with a scripted show since "Matlock" in 1995, according to Nielsen Media Research.\nABC, owned by The Walt Disney Co., had some inkling that "Ugly Betty," an American version of a popular Spanish-language telenovela, was attracting attention even before the first episode aired. It had originally scheduled the show for Friday nights -- one of the slowest nights on TV -- before switching it to Thursday over the summer.\nWith "Grey's Anatomy" seen by 23.3 million at 9 p.m., ABC is suddenly a player on a night considered television's most valuable because advertisers are eager to be seen there, a night ABC has been off the ratings radar for years.\nCBS, which has dominated Thursday the past few years, had 23.5 million viewers for "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and 16.6 million viewers for "Survivor: Cook Island."\nThe "Survivor" episode, only its third of the season, was notable for breaking up the segregated tribes that caused some hubbub weeks ago.\nThis season began with separate "tribes" of black, white, Asian and Latinos on "Survivor." The segregation drew criticism, with some New York City Council members accusing CBS Corp. of promoting divisiveness.\nBut Thursday the reality show producers merged those four tribes into two multi-race gangs. It wasn't in response to any of the criticism; the "Survivor" episodes were filmed before CBS had even announced the cast members.\nThe show had begun the season missing a few advertisers that it had in past seasons, including General Motors, although the advertisers denied that they left because of the segregation experiment.
(02/09/06 6:32am)
NEW YORK - Nobody turns off the microphone on Mick Jagger without a fight.\nCensorship of their songs during the Super Bowl halftime show was "absolutely ridiculous and completely unnecessary," said the Rolling Stones through a spokeswoman Tuesday.\nThe NFL, which produced the show seen on ABC Sunday night, silenced Jagger's microphone during sexually suggestive passages of two of the three songs the band performed before an audience of 90 million television viewers.\nThe NFL, still nervous over the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction two years ago at the Super Bowl, has said it wanted to ensure family entertainment at the game.\n"The band was aware of our plan to simply lower Mick's mike at the appropriate moments," said NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy. "It was discussed with the group last week prior to the Super Bowl."\nHe declined further comment on the Stones' statement.\nThe band may have known about it, but that doesn't mean they liked it, spokeswoman Fran Curtis said. Jagger sang the full lyrics during his performance, she said.\nIn "Start Me Up," the show's editors silenced one word close to the song's end, a reference to a woman so sexy she could arouse a dead man. The lyrics for "Rough Justice" included a synonym for rooster that was removed.\nThe Stones also performed "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," but the lyric "I can't get no girlie action" made it through unscathed.\nThe incident was reminiscent of the band's performance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1967, when the host demanded the Stones change the lyrics to "Let's Spend the Night Together." As ordered, Jagger sang "let's spend some time together," but he rolled his eyes for effect.
(02/07/06 6:15am)
NEW YORK -- The Pittsburgh Steelers' victory against the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl was watched in an average of 45.85 million homes, the second-highest total in television history behind the final episode of "M-A-S-H" in 1983.\nPittsburgh's 21-10 victory Sunday got a 41.6 preliminary national rating, Nielsen Media Service said Monday, up slightly from the 41.1 rating last year. The share remained the same at 62.\nThe game was watched by an estimated 141.4 million people in the United States, ABC said, the second-highest total to view a program behind the 144.4 million who tuned to New England's victory over Carolina in the 2004 Super Bowl. That number estimates the total amount of people to watch the game at any point.\nThe estimated average of 90.7 million people -- or the estimated number of viewers throughout -- was the largest Super Bowl audience since the Steelers last played in the title game in 1996, a loss to Dallas that attracted an average of 94.1 million people watching. This year's audience was 5 percent larger than the 86.1 million people who watched the Patriots beat the Philadelphia Eagles last year. ABC also scored solid ratings for an episode of "Grey's Anatomy" following the game.\nIn 1983, the final episode of "M-A-S-H" was watched in an average of 50.15 million homes.\nWhile the Steelers won by 11 points, the game wasn't really decided until the final five minutes or so, which kept the audience attracted, said Larry Hyams, ABC research executive.\n"The Super Bowl obviously is a national event and people are going to tune in regardless of whether the teams have national appeal," Hyams said. "It's up to the game to hold the audience."\nThe Super Bowl is traditionally the biggest television event of the year. The Academy Awards, jokingly called the "Super Bowl for women," often comes in second; last year, 41.5 million people saw the Oscars.\nPittsburgh had the largest Super Bowl rating (percentage of all sets, whether on or off) of any media market, with a 57.1, Nielsen said. Seattle followed directly behind with a 55.\nThe "Grey's Anatomy" episode after the game was seen by 38.1 million people, Nielsen said. That's 15 million more than has ever watched a single episode of the medical soap. It was the most-watched entertainment program of the season so far -- even beating "American Idol."\nSince 1991, only two post-Super Bowl programs have drawn a bigger audience: "Survivor" in 2001 and "Friends" in 1996. It was solid exposure for a series that has already been growing in appeal during its second season.\nSuper Bowl viewers feasted on another halftime show controversy, when the NFL briefly shut off Mick Jagger's microphone to avoid sexually-suggestive lyrics in two Rolling Stones songs. At halftime, Jagger was silenced during portions of the songs "Start Me Up" and "Rough Justice." An NFL spokesman said the band knew ahead of time that the league -- still skittish over Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction from two years ago -- wouldn't accept the particular lyrics.\n"It wasn't that big of an issue for us," said Frank Supovitz, the NFL's senior vice president, who said the league wanted to make the halftime show family entertainment.
(01/30/06 5:05am)
NEW YORK -- ABC "World News Tonight" co-anchor Bob Woodruff and a cameraman were seriously injured Sunday when the Iraqi Army vehicle they were traveling in was attacked with an explosive device.\nBoth journalists suffered head injuries, and Woodruff also has broken bones. They were in stable condition following surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Iraq, and due to be evacuated to medical facilities in Germany, probably overnight, said ABC News President David Westin.\n"We take this as good news, but the next few days will be critical," Westin said.\nWoodruff and Doug Vogt, an award-winning cameraman, were embedded with the 4th Infantry Division and traveling in a convoy with U.S. and Iraqi troops near Taji, about 12 miles north of Baghdad.\nThey were wearing body armor and helmets but were standing up in the hatch of the mechanized vehicle when the device exploded, exposing them to shrapnel. An Iraqi solder was also hurt in the \nexplosion.\nABC said the men were in the Iraqi vehicle -- considered less secure than U.S. military equipment -- to get the perspective of the Iraqi military. They were aware the Iraqi forces are the frequent targets of insurgent attacks, the network said.\n"If you're going to cover the Iraqi military, you have to go with them, you have to see how they live," said ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz, reporting on the attack on ABC's "This Week" Sunday.\nThe U.S. military confirmed that Woodruff and Vogt were injured in the midday attack and said an investigation is \nunder way.\nLara Logan, a CBS News correspondent who has covered Iraq, said the Taji area is considered particularly dangerous because it was the site of one of Saddam Hussein's munitions dumps. Many of the explosives are believed to have gotten into the hands of insurgents, she said.\n"I admire Bob for going with the Iraqis," said Logan, who was blown 12 feet in the air by an explosion while with the U.S. military in Afghanistan in 2003. "It's important to hear their story and to experience it from their point of view. He did the right thing."\nSetting the broadcast aside from its network rivals, ABC usually stations one of the anchors in a New York studio while the other is doing reports from the field. Woodruff spent three days in Israel last week reporting on the Palestinian elections, and was to have been in Iraq through the State of the Union address on Tuesday, according to ABC.\nWoodruff, a father of four, has been at ABC News since 1996. He grew up in Michigan and became a corporate lawyer in New York, but changed fields soon after a stint teaching law in Beijing in 1989 and helping CBS News during the Tiananmen Square uprising.\nVogt, 46, is a three-time Emmy award winning cameraman from Canada who has spent the last 20 years based in Europe covering global events for CBC, BBC and now exclusively for ABC News. He lives in Aix-en-Provence, France.
(09/30/05 4:09am)
NEW YORK -- Another musician has tested the tolerance level for bad language on prime-time television, but she's no raucous rock star.\nWould you believe it's Joan Baez?\nThe 64-year-old folkie was interviewed as part of "Bob Dylan: No Direction Home," the two-part "American Masters" series directed by Martin Scorsese that aired this week on PBS. She talked about how fellow musicians were frustrated with Dylan's use of the F-word. \nPBS said both "clean" and unedited versions of the film were sent out to its 349 stations, leaving it up to the local station managers to decide their community's tolerance for language.\nTo the best of her knowledge, only New York's WNET-TV -- the nation's largest TV market and Scorsese's hometown -- aired the unedited version, PBS spokeswoman Lee Sloan said Wednesday.\nWNET spokeswoman Debra Falk said the station decided to use it because the language was not gratuitous and fit into the context of the film. Both nights of the film began with the warning: "The following program contains strong language. Viewer discretion is advised."\nU2 frontman Bono sparked a Federal Communications Commission probe last year when he used the same word on a live Golden Globe Awards broadcast carried by NBC. NBC also banned Motley Crue from the network after band member Vince Neil used an expletive during a New Year's Eve "Tonight" show broadcast.\nThe first night of the Dylan film averaged 3.6 million viewers Monday -- a strong number for PBS.
(05/06/05 3:18am)
NEW YORK -- "American Idol" has kicked off contestants for concealing sordid secrets about their pasts -- including Corey Clark, who now says he had an affair with judge Paula Abdul while competing two years ago.\nWill Abdul be next?\nResponding Thursday to Clark's accusations, Fox and the show's producers didn't mention Abdul's name and minimized the role of judges in choosing winners. But it's clearly a crisis for "American Idol," which has managed to shake off other challenges.\nOusted contestants, clogged phone lines that hindered voting, incorrect voting phone numbers that forced a do-over earlier this season, superior singers being suspiciously eliminated -- nothing has derailed the "Idol" juggernaut, which was watched by an estimated 24.5 million people Wednesday.\n"We have gone to great lengths and great expense to create a voting system that is fair and reliable," Fox said Thursday. "Judges may offer opinions, but viewers vote using their own subjective criteria, and it is the voters who ultimately determine each season's American idol."\nThere was no immediate comment Thursday from Abdul about Clark's claims on ABC's "Primetime Live," which were buttressed by phone records, a voicemail message, the testimony of his parents and friends and other circumstantial evidence. She has called Clark, who's almost 20 years younger than her and was kicked off "Idol" for not coming clean about charges he assaulted his younger sister, a "liar" and an opportunist with a new book and CD to sell. She has not specifically denied his charges, however.\n"If there is a shred of truth that she messed around with a contestant, you won't see her as a judge next year," said Shari Anne Brill, a television analyst for the media buying firm Carat USA.\nStill, Brill said, "The franchise will live on. They seemed to weather all of these other storms."\nIt would be far worse if, like during the 1950s quiz show scandals, nefarious backstage dealings influenced the outcome of the contest, said both Brill and Stacey Lynn Koerner, another representative of a company that advises advertisers where to place their commercials.\nResearch by Koerner's company, Initiative Media, indicates that Abdul is one of the top reasons why fans love "American Idol."\n"It would be difficult to say how forgiving they would be," she said. "But given the fact that they are predisposed to love her, they could be very forgiving."\nFox needs to do some research about whether fans would accept Abdul being forced out, she said.\nThe former Laker girl and choreographer for Janet Jackson became a pop star and MTV favorite in 1989 with her danceable pop hits like "Straight Up" and "Forever Your Girl."\nShe was married twice, to Emilio Estevez and then clothes manufacturer Brad Beckerman, and divorced twice. She's been single since 1998.\nFor many years, Abdul fought bulimia and chronic pain related to dance injuries and accidents. After years of dealing with painkillers that she said sometimes made her "loopy," Abdul told People magazine in this week's issue that she's been feeling better with the help of a new medication.\nShe told People she's ready for a relationship, looking "for someone who wants to get to know me."\nAbdul kept busy as a writer and choreographer when her music career fizzled. But her casting as one of three "American Idol" judges -- the "nice girl" antidote to nasty Simon Cowell -- gave her a second life in the limelight.\nShe told The Associated Press earlier this year that the attention she gets for being nice is one of the funniest things she's ever \nwitnessed.\n"I've always liked it to be one of my most powerful traits, because I'm in a position where I can be a creepy person," she said. "I could choose to be mean or nasty but I choose to find the good in business."\nClark, a 24-year-old amateur singer from Nashville, Tenn., said on "Primetime Live" that he was unable to resist the advances of the 42-year-old Abdul.\nHe says Abdul advised him on his clothes, haircut and song selection for "American Idol," and slept with him in the guest bedroom of her Los Angeles home, where he shared space with her dogs Thumbelina, Tulip and Tinker Bell.\nThe "Primetime Live" special drew 13.8 million viewers, winning its time slot against original episodes of "CSI: NY" on CBS and "Law & Order" on NBC.\nFox says Clark has not responded to requests for help investigating his charges. Clark says he has no interest in helping the show that booted him off.\nSentiment was running in Abdul's favor among some 200,000 people who participated in an instant poll on America Online's Web site on Thursday. Asked if they believed Clark's allegations, 47 percent said no and 30 percent said they believed only some of them.\nWhile they may like Abdul, when AOL asked readers if they thought "American Idol" is fair, the vote was fairly close -- only 54 to 46 percent in favor.
(04/28/05 5:27am)
LOS ANGELES -- Even on an eclectic stretch like the Sunset Strip, it's hard to miss the Mutato Muzika office. The building is squat and round, painted lime green. It looks like a flying saucer about to lift off.\nMark Mothersbaugh always had his eye on it, and when the tenant left, he bought the property.\nIt's now one of the busiest musical factories in Hollywood.\nChances are you've heard Mothersbaugh's work, but how depends on your age and taste. Rock fans saw him bounce around in a yellow jumpsuit and red dome as a member of Devo. Kids giggle to his music in "Rugrats." Teens hear it while immersed in PlayStation games. And moviegoers can hear it in the background during such films as "Thirteen" and the upcoming "Lords of Dogtown" and "Herbie: Fully Loaded."\nIn a business that rarely allows for more than one, the 54-year-old Mothersbaugh has lived several lives.\n"There are still people who are clients of mine and don't really know about Devo," he said. "They'll be walking in the office and see the platinum records and go, `Oh, I remember them vaguely. My dad was into that band.'"\nAfter posing for photos with two of his dogs that wander the circular hallway at Mutato, Mothersbaugh settles behind a mixing board to talk about a musical journey that began more than three decades ago back home in Akron, Ohio.\nMothersbaugh and a fellow Kent State University art student, Jerry Casale, formed Devo in the early 1970s. They each recruited one of their brothers, both named Bob, and drummer Alan Myers. Devo was short for devolution, the idea that man was devolving into its monkey state.\n"It gave us sort of a methodology for writing music," he said. "It gave us a way to talk about the things that we were concerned about and curious about and still be writing music."\nThey introduced themselves to the world by taking one of rock's best-known songs, the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction," and transforming it into a spastic, herky-jerky version that bordered on sacrilege.\nIt sounded strange. It looked stranger.\n"I remember seeing Devo for the first time on television and being scared," said Randall Poster, a Hollywood music supervisor who now works frequently with Mothersbaugh.\nDevo had an early MTV hit with "Whip It" and some other smaller successes like "Beautiful World," recently featured in a Target ad. But the gas ran out in the mid-1980s.\nMothersbaugh's most depressing moment came during a European tour where he needed hours a day with a vaporizer to keep from losing his voice. Someone brought a tape of "This is Spinal Tap" on the bus and he realized he'd lived most of the scenes.\n"It's really cool when you're 20; it's a really great job," he said. "When you're 30, you're thinking it's time to move on; and when you're 40, shame on you. If you're 50 and you're doing it, you're just pathetic, I think."\nMothersbaugh had moved to Los Angeles shortly after Devo began recording. He was intrigued when a friend, Paul Reubens, asked if he would write a theme song for a new show he was working on. Mothersbaugh provided the music for "Pee-Wee's Playhouse."\nHis music is often bouncy and fun, although slightly skewed. He was a natural for a new generation of children's television producers, and he was in demand. Mothersbaugh has worked on more than 40 TV shows. The pace of rock 'n' roll songwriting about 10 songs a year bored him, and he was signing contracts that demanded as many as eight songs a week. Both his brother and the Casales joined him in the new business.\nIt has enabled him to work musical avenues he never would have dreamed of. He's written bebop jazz, worked with a 100-piece orchestra, seen heroes like Willie Nelson sing his songs. Even O.J. Simpson sang one of his songs, called "We're All Winners."\nMovie soundtrack work followed. Mothersbaugh is a particular favorite of director Wes Anderson, and he's worked on a few of Anderson's films "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "Rushmore."\n"He has a kind of good fairy quality that just makes magic," said Poster, who works with Anderson. "He's enchanting. I hate to use the word `genius,' but if you sit with him, he's always creating something _ at the keyboard, drawing, translating things into art."\nMothersbaugh is known for his use of instruments that are not always traditional, his ability with synthesizers and the strong percussive sense that comes from working in rock 'n' roll, Poster said.\nSome film scorers follow traditional paths, and their work is very recognizable. An admirer of Andy Warhol as an artist, Mothersbaugh said that like Warhol, he is more about ideas than a particular technique.\n"When you bring in somebody like me ... you're looking for somebody who is going to help create a musical universe for your movie that is particular to your film or your project," he said.\nSome directors have clear ideas of what they want; others don't. Some hold a tight rein; others allow him more creative freedom. Mothersbaugh must adapt to these styles, and try to put strange ideas into music: the makers of "Thirteen" told Mothersbaugh they wanted a piece that sounded like "brain cells popping," he said.\nWorking in a band with two sets of brothers made Mothersbaugh comfortable with collaborating with a filmmaker.\n"At the end of the day, it's his film," he said. "He's the director. It's not Gene Hackman's film, or Ben Affleck's or Tom Cruise's film. It's the director's film. It's his job to pull all of the elements together and make it work. If you're doing your job right, you're helping him achieve his vision."\nMutato Muzika has also done commercial work. Mothersbaugh recently composed a piece for a Burger King chicken sandwich spot. Devo fans will enjoy the irony: the band's first album included a mocking recitation of a Burger King theme song at the time.\n(By the way, he said he never realized when he let a floor cleaner company use "Whip It" for an commercial that the results would turn out so embarrassingly bad.)\nSo with all this work, what was Devo doing taking part in a series of "one-hit wonder" concerts with acts like A Flock of Seagulls and Tommy Tutone last year?\n"To be honest, I had no idea of the name of the tour until after" Devo committed to it, he said. "It was like, `Wait a minute. We had more than one hit.' In a way, I didn't care. It was not that important. I'm not trying to restart Devo's career."\nDevo does accept jobs, however, performing the same show it did back in 1977 with some highlights of the years afterward. "We're more like weekend warriors at this point," he said.\nThe money is much better now, and the members are much better musicians, he said.\n"I don't feel silly about it," he said. "It was something that we did that was really cool. Admittedly, it's different being 50 years old and doing it. With those yellow, baggy suits we used to wear, we always kind of looked like cheeseburgers. Now we just look like double cheeseburgers"
(03/10/05 4:15am)
NEW YORK -- Dan Rather echoed a word he once used every night to sign off the "CBS Evening News" -- courage -- in anchoring the program for the final time Wednesday after 24 years.\nIn a brief statement at the end of the broadcast, Rather paid tribute to Sept. 11 terrorist victims, tsunami survivors, American military forces, the oppressed, those in failing health and fellow journalists in dangerous places.\n"And, to each of you," he said. "Courage."\nHe seemed to savor each word of his signoff: "For the 'CBS Evening News,' Dan Rather reporting. Good night."\nRather's reporting career spanned from the Kennedy assassination to this winter's tsunami, and he's been the public face of CBS's legendary news division since replacing Walter Cronkite March 9, 1981.\nHis first newscast included a story about English girls imitating the hairstyle of Prince Charles' bride-to-be, Diana. The lead story Wednesday was oil prices causing a bad day on Wall Street.\nHe's the second of the three men who dominated network news for more than two decades to step down in four months. NBC's Tom Brokaw exited in November, leaving ABC's Peter Jennings remaining at "World News Tonight."\nBob Schieffer is Rather's temporary replacement starting Thursday. CBS expects to name a permanent anchor team to succeed Rather in the coming months.\nRather, 73, is returning to full-time reporting for CBS's "60 Minutes" broadcasts.\nHe flashed a steadfast defiance in reminding viewers of the phrase "courage." He was mocked by some for using that to end his broadcasts and then gave up on the idea.\nHis exit comes at a low ebb for his career. Rather took much of the public blame for a discredited "60 Minutes" story last fall about President Bush's military service, and he was a distant third in the ratings behind NBC's Brian Williams and Jennings.\nHe was a target of conservatives who accused the media of bias for more than three decades, since his coverage of the Nixon White House during the Watergate era, and many have exulted in his recent misfortunes.\nBut he had his supporters, too.\nMarian MacNeil of Windsor, Calif., said she watched Rather regularly and admired him. \n"I feel terrible the way he's being treated now," MacNeil said. "I think they're smearing a good reputation and overshadowing his 50 years. I hope he's able to rise above this."\nMeanwhile, a CBS affiliate in northern Michigan that had said it would let its viewers decide whether it should run Wednesday's prime-time CBS tribute to Rather backed off those plans. The station in Cadillac, Mich., said Wednesday its poll had been grossly misinterpreted.\n"We were simply trying to maintain the great tradition of local viewer input that is the foundation of our modern-day broadcasting system," said William E. Kring, the station's general manager. "It was never our intent to embarrass Mr. Rather or the CBS network."\nBoth Jennings and Williams planned to pay tribute to Rather on their broadcasts.
(05/10/04 1:15am)
NEW YORK -- In the end, Rachel, Ross, Joey, Phoebe, Monica and Chandler had a lot of friends.\nAn estimated 51.1 million people tuned in for the final "Friends" on NBC Thursday night, watching the crowd-pleasing story line of Ross and Rachel declaring their undying love for each other.\nThat makes it the fourth most-watched television series finale ever, behind "M-A-S-H" (105 million in 1983), "Cheers" (80.4 million in 1993) and "Seinfeld" (76.2 million in 1998), according to Nielsen Media Research.\nIt was also the most popular entertainment program on television since the concluding episode of the first "Survivor," watched by 51.7 million in August 2000.\nBesides the Ross and Rachel coupling -- after a series of last-minute fits and starts -- Monica and Chandler's characters were surprised by the birth of twins as they prepared to move to the suburbs. The series ended with the new parents moving out of the impossibly large New York apartment that was the show's primary setting.\nOf more than 30,000 people to respond to an America Online poll, 77 percent said rekindling Ross and Rachel's romance was the perfect ending for the show.\n"I just finished bawling my eyes out," one AOL member posted. "I am sooo glad you got off the plane, Rach. I should have done the same thing a long time ago."\nThe show received mixed reviews from television critics.\n"It went out as it came in 10 years ago -- as the blandest, most artless comedy series ever to top Nielsen charts in the history of television," wrote an unsentimental Adam Buckman of The New York Post.\nEric Deggans, TV critic at the St. PetersburgTimes said the finale displayed much of the mostly crackling comedy that viewers had come to expect.\n"So comfortable was Thursday's finale that it didn't really feel like a goodbye," Deggans wrote. "Grounded in all the things that made the show great, it left us feeling like we could expect to turn on the TV at 8 p.m. next Thursday and see our televised buddies waiting for us."\nWhile the finale was "formulaic," Aaron Barnhart of The Kansas City Star said it "at least avoided the ignominious end of other more critically acclaimed sitcoms, like 'M-A-S-H' and 'Seinfeld.'"\nFrazier Moore of The Associated Press was unimpressed.\n"Lots of group hugs," he wrote. "Lots of tears. Then everyone, including the newborns, were off to the Central Perk for one last coffee. What this finale served viewers was a mighty weak brew."\nNielsen estimated that just under 36 million people warmed up for the last episode by watching highlights of the past 10 seasons during the hour preceding Thursday's finale. The "Tonight" show, where Jay Leno interviewed the six cast members, had its highest rating in big cities since the "Seinfeld" finale.\nNBC's promotion of the show was relentless, including "Dateline NBC" specials the night before and after.\n"Can I tell you something honestly?" Jon Stewart said on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" on Thursday. "I never watched that show -- and I'm sick of it"
(04/02/04 5:35am)
NEW YORK -- Even with an audience including Julia Roberts, Renee Zellweger, George Clooney and Nicolas Cage, singer-songwriter Damien Rice is not a background kind of guy.\nAll those stars attended a gig Rice had last year at the home of a Hollywood agent to introduce his music to the movie community. But it was a party with networking and laughing, so when the folksy Irishman began strumming his guitar, few people noticed.\nAnnoyed, Rice wanted to pack up his guitar, return his fee and leave. But that would have been rude -- not to mention professionally suicidal. So he tried a trick. He moved away from the microphone, knelt on one knee and started to sing.\n"I did one song really quietly and sang it for me," he recalled. "(I thought) this is the last song I'm doing unless they all phone in and focus and really want something more. And then it just happened to work."\nHe's been winning over less famous fans the same way. His debut album, "O," has sold nearly 300,000 copies in the U.S. and won the Shortlist Music Prize. Rice is selling out 3,000-seat venues on a current tour through cities where a year ago he couldn't fill a bar.\nHis powerful, emotionally-intense music has drawn comparisons to the late Jeff Buckley. Rice's best-known track, "Volcano," mixes his voice with singer Lisa Hannigan and a mournful cello.\n"He has a beautiful, powerful voice, and the delivery of these songs really takes you on a journey," said music executive Jack Rovner. "There's just a handful of artists that have that innate ability to take control and Damien has that."\nRovner, a former RCA executive, has bet on that ability: he and partner Ken Levitan made it the first release on their new label, Vector Recordings.\nTake an artsy, romantic Irishman and put him on the phone from an intoxicating city like Florence, Italy, to talk about his music, and you'll get sentences like this:\n"There's something magical about music, and the simple fact that it's a vibration of air. It's sort of magical if you vibrate the air in a certain way, people are pleased by it."\nLike wow, man!\nRice may be a dreamer, but he also has a confidence in his own art that has served him well.\nFor eight years, he was the singer for the Irish rock band Juniper, which did well in his home country. They had a major label contract and a seemingly comfortable life.\nBut Rice, now 30, felt pressure to write hit songs, and it got to him. He felt like fences were being built around him.\n"All of a sudden, your lifestyle has become less adventurous and less free," he said. "I found that when it happened to me, I was less creative and had less of a desire to live because I didn't feel like I was really living."\nHe quit the band and reconnected with his true love by busing around Europe with his guitar.\n"I would sit down and sing whatever I wanted to sing, mostly my own songs," he said. "I enjoyed my experiences. I got the perfect amount of money to do whatever it was I wanted to do at the time."\nRice is no fool, though. He traveled with a credit card.\nHis current success is proving a test. According to one recent review, he seemed upset when he couldn't completely silence the crowd at a sold-out London show for 4,800 fans -- the same problem he had at the Hollywood party.\nA bigger crowd "makes a difference to the energy in your body before you walk on the stage, but my approach is very similar," Rice said. "I walk onstage with the same natural, innate desire -- which is to be true, to be free, as honest with myself as I can be in that moment."\nVector's Rovner marveled at what Rice has achieved with little radio airplay or notice on the charts. Word of mouth is what every marketer dreams about.\nThat's the good news.
(10/30/03 5:46am)
NEW YORK -- If Ronald Reagan, Jessica Lynch, Elizabeth Smart, Britney Spears and Andy Griffith can't save the television networks this season, maybe nothing can.\nThe November "sweeps" get under way Thursday, offering the major broadcast networks a chance to start again. The season opening felt like a false start.\nABC, CBS, NBC, the WB and UPN -- five of the six biggest networks -- have lost audience this season compared to 2002 and, what is more important, lost the younger viewers that advertisers crave. The one gainer is Fox, due entirely to a stellar baseball postseason.\n"The November sweeps can't get here a minute too soon, given the lackluster performance of much of the networks' programming this season," said Ed Martin, programming editor for The Myers Report, a media economy newsletter. "Nothing has caught on and the only hope now is some terrific sweeps programming to turn the lights back on and get people interested in television."\nSweeps are the industry name for the three separate months during the season when ratings are monitored closely to set local advertising rates. Networks concentrate much of their best programming in these months.\nBecause nobody has started strongly, it's one of the most important sweeps in years, said Steve Sternberg, an analyst for the media buying firm Magna Global USA.\n"It's hard to figure out what's going on when you have the World Series and baseball postseason going so well combined with the fact that there's been nothing major coming out of the networks to get your attention," he said.\nCBS, like NBC probably hurt the most by baseball's strength, is cutting the highest profile over the next month.\nThe network's four-hour miniseries, "The Reagans," set for Nov. 16 and 18, already has fans of the former president nervous about how he will be portrayed. A conservative group has called for an advertiser boycott.\nIt doesn't help that actor James Brolin (outspoken liberal Barbra Streisand's husband) is cast as Ronald Reagan.\nIn further nostalgic appeals, CBS airs a three-hour 75th anniversary special on Sunday and welcomes Andy Griffith, Ron Howard, Don Knotts and Jim Nabors back to Mayberry for a reunion special Nov. 11. A similar reunion for Carol Burnett stunned the industry with its high ratings in November 2001.\nCBS and NBC engage in one of the most unusual, and perhaps destructive, ratings battles on Nov. 9 when they present television movies about kidnap victim Smart (CBS) and former POW Lynch (NBC) at exactly the same time.\nIt's one of Sternberg's pet peeves: networks programming as much to hurt rivals as to build audiences for themselves.\nBesides the Lynch movie and music specials with Justin Timberlake and Shania Twain on Thanksgiving week, NBC is relatively stunt-free. Instead, the network hopes to draw viewers with its original programming, with twists like Bob Newhart on "ER."\nNBC has suffered this season because some old reliables, like "Friends," have lost popularity. Although "Frasier" has rebounded in quality, if not in ratings, Martin said many of the critics he's talked to across the country are surprised at how the quality of writing has slipped for many returning shows on all networks.\n"People are scratching their heads," he said. "What's with all this dead air?"\nAfter methodically boosting its appeal among younger viewers, traditionally older-skewing CBS has been hurt more than any other network by a puzzling viewership decline among young people, particularly men. Networks have grumbled that it's the fault of the messenger, Nielsen Media Research.\nSternberg suggests they look in the mirror instead. Few of the new programs appeal to young men, he said.\nABC is slowly rebuilding with family-pleasing comedies, but its schedule contains enough holes that November is packed with special events. Many are generated by the news division: Diane Sawyer interviews Lynch and Spears, Barbara Walters talks to Martha Stewart, Peter Jennings investigates the Kennedy assassination and Elizabeth Vargas explores the life of Jesus Christ.\nThe comedy, "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter" returns with its first post-John Ritter episode and -- perhaps inevitably -- Regis Philbin appears on Kelly Ripa's "Hope & Faith."\nBaseball did so well for Fox that the network topped the prime-time ratings race for three weeks in a row -- the first time that's ever happened. While waiting for baseball to end, Fox kept most of its new shows on the shelf, and they're only now starting.\nThere are ominous signs, though, that baseball won't help the rest of its lineup. Two shows heavily promoted on baseball -- "Joe Millionaire" and "Skin" -- badly tanked in their first two weeks and the network's new Friday night is already D.O.A.\nFox is airing an "American Idol" holiday special on Nov. 25, and bringing special guests to some of its regular shows, like Ellen DeGeneres on "Bernie Mac" and Liza Minnelli on "Arrested Development"
(10/14/03 5:09am)
NEW YORK -- Three weeks into the new television season, NBC is giving its Friday schedule a complete facelift -- an indication all is not well at the most profitable broadcast network.\nThe critically praised "Boomtown" is now on hiatus, replaced by a "Law & Order: SVU" rerun. Alicia Silverstone's dating drama, "Miss Match," is moving an hour later to 9 p.m. EDT. And a "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" rerun was lifted from Bravo and plugged into the 8 p.m. slot.\nWith old favorites "Friends," "Frasier" and "ER" losing audience and no new hits, NBC is down 10 percent in viewers this season compared to last. Among the 18-to-49-year-old demographic its executives care about most, the decline is 12 percent.\n"I don't want to say they're in trouble, but they've got weaknesses that a savvy counterprogrammer could take advantage of," Shari Anne Brill, a television analyst for the ad buying firm Carat USA, said Thursday.\nSo far, NBC executives remain bullish. The network is still No. 1 among 18-to-49-year-olds, the reason NBC takes in more advertising revenue than any other network and is second to CBS among all viewers.\n"We're in good shape," NBC entertainment president Jeff Zucker said. "We're having a good season."\nZucker points out that CBS, the WB and UPN have seen an even steeper decline among 18-to-49-year-olds. Networks are muttering about the sharp drops in youthful demographics, believing a change in Nielsen Media Research's methodology is partly responsible; Nielsen says their changes aren't to blame. \nWith "Friends" and "Frasier" in their final seasons, it's considered a crucial year for NBC.\n"Even 'Will & Grace' is past its fifth season," aid John Rash, an analyst for the Chicago ad-buying firm Campbell-Mithune. "They have not established the new generation of hits in the same way that they were able to get 'Seinfeld' to replace 'Cheers' and 'ER' to replace 'L.A. Law.'"\nBright spots for NBC include Mondays, where the continued success of "Fear Factor" has helped the new drama "Las Vegas," get off to a quick start. And after a surprising decline last year, "The West Wing" appears to have righted its ship creatively and commercially.\nThe pressure remains to find new hits. One factor in NBC's favor: it's only two weeks, and new shows can be introduced or catch on now at any time.\n"They might be alright this year," Brill said. "The problem is next year. They might be in trouble. They don't have a new generation to take over on many of their nights. They could very well lose their 18-to-49-year-old supremacy"
(10/09/03 5:44am)
NEW YORK -- Maria Shriver will huddle soon with NBC News executives to decide how her job as a correspondent will change now that she's about to become California's first lady.\nShriver, who works primarily for "Dateline NBC," was on an unpaid leave of absence during the campaign, where she stumped with husband Arnold Schwarzenegger and defended him against allegations that he had groped other women.\n"She's not going to report on California politics nor anything that Governor Schwarzenegger might have to make a ruling on," NBC News President Neal Shapiro said Wednesday.\nShapiro declined to comment on whether Shriver would have to give up all political reporting, saying he wanted to speak to her about it first.\nHe said he was confident that Shriver wouldn't do anything to put NBC News in a difficult ethical position, noting she has dealt with these issues in the past. Shriver, a niece of former President John F. Kennedy, has avoided stories that involve the Kennedy family.\n"She's an experienced and talented and hardworking journalist," Shapiro said. "I see no reason why her career should be wiped away because her husband has a career in public life."\nBroadcasters, and particularly NBC News, have dealt with these issues before. NBC's foreign affairs correspondent, Andrea Mitchell, is married to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.\nMarvin Kalb, a former television journalist and senior fellow at Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, said he initially believed Shriver would have no problem heading back to NBC when it appeared she wouldn't take an active role in the campaign.\nBut she did campaign, and was pictured celebrating his victory beside her husband on the front page of many newspapers on Wednesday morning, he said.\n"It seems to me that both the network and Maria Shriver have to think long and hard about whether she can be perceived by viewers as an impartial journalist," Kalb said.\nHe acknowledged that NBC might look bad to some observers if it cut ties with a professional woman because of her husband.\n"I can see the image problem for NBC in both directions, whether they cut her or keep her," he said.\nShriver's agent, Richard Liebner, said Wednesday he hadn't spoken with his client for nearly two weeks but that "her plan has always been to go back to work and I'm certain that she will."\n"Her journalism spoke for itself in the past and will speak for itself in the future," Liebner said.\nBesides reporting stories for "Dateline NBC," Shriver has served as a substitute anchor for that broadcast. She also has filled in for Katie Couric on the "Today" show.\nShe covered the 2000 political conventions for NBC News. This year, she has done stories on a Botox lawsuit in California, musician Celine Dion and the Scott Peterson and Robert Blake criminal cases. She also did stories during the Iraq war on public opinion in the United States.\nShapiro said he wasn't sure whether Shriver, who now lives in Los Angeles, would continue to be based there or in Sacramento.
(09/16/03 5:24am)
NEW YORK -- A new television season begins next week -- time to stretch your imagination to see old friends in new roles.\nRob Lowe has left the White House for a law firm. Whoopi Goldberg is a hotel operator with a razor tongue. Mark Harmon investigates crimes in the military. Kelly Ripa is a washed-up soap star.\nTelevision executives dream, too. Of bountiful ratings. Fortune magazine covers. All of their strategic moves paying off.\nA new season brings mystery -- public taste can't always be predicted -- and opportunity to change competitive positions.\nCBS is bidding for another year as the nation's most popular network, hoping the public's taste for crime and legal tales doesn't run out. NBC, most popular with younger viewers that advertisers pay premiums to reach, awaits the last year of "Friends" and "Frasier."\nFox wants to build on some unexpected successes. ABC is trying a novel, new strategy -- stability -- that was thrown for a loop with the death of John Ritter.\nLet's tune in.\nThe conventional wisdom holds that this is a crucial year for NBC. Two of its most popular comedies face swan songs. "The West Wing," after an unexpected decline last season, is without creator Aaron Sorkin. Perennial favorite "ER" is being challenged for the first time, by CBS' "Without a Trace."\nThis season, NBC tries two bold comedic approaches: "Whoopi" uses the topical humor of Norman Lear as an inspiration, and the frank sexual talk of "Coupling" clearly has "Sex and the City" in mind.\nNBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker isn't buying the idea that NBC can't afford to finish this year without new comedy hits.\n"You can't replace something like 'Friends' until they go away," he said. "`Seinfeld' only really emerged, even though it had been on the air, after 'Cheers' went away."\nCBS has adroitly learned how to program to the public taste, and to its older audience. Harmon's "Navy CIS" is exactly as its name suggests, a cross between "JAG" and "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."\nThe biggest risk is pushing familiarity too far. \n"If you have something that works, you don't have to copy it 25 times," said Roy Rothstein, an analyst for Zenith Media Services, an ad-buying firm.\nRight now, though, people can't seem to get enough, said Kelly Kahl, CBS' top scheduling executive.\n"At some point, I suppose we will (reach a saturation point)," he said. "But it's hard to argue with the strategy when the No. 1 and No. 2 new dramas last year were 'Without a Trace' and 'CSI: Miami.'"\nCBS' biggest risks come in moving "The King of Queens" to Wednesdays and trying another criminal whodunit ("Cold Case") on Sunday nights.\nABC narrowly missed the embarrassment of dropping behind Fox to fourth last season. Last spring, ABC cast much of its regular schedule aside in favor of chintzy reality series.\n"It was a huge mistake, and not just with our viewers \nbut with our whole perspective of the network," said ABC Entertainment President Susan Lyne. "In the end, maybe it was good because it did make us cognizant of the \nfact that it's a marathon here and not a sprint. \nOur whole summer strategy came out of that experience."\nNew shows this year feature Ripa attempting broad, physical comedy, and some fish-out-of-water tales that Lyne hopes play for laughs: a New Yorker moving to Kansas, a teacher marrying a movie star and a couple with one set of conservative parents and two gay dads.\nFox's fall performance is invariably hard to predict because, with the baseball playoffs and World Series, several of its shows won't start until November.\n"The traditional way of looking at our rollout or anybody's schedule is really obsolete," said Gail Berman, Fox's entertainment chief. "This is really a year-round business. And everybody's business is a different business"
(09/11/03 5:10am)
NEW YORK -- The only known video footage of both planes hitting the World Trade Center is the subject of a dispute that stopped it from being shown nationally on ABC News Sunday, and may prevent it from surfacing at all.\nYet to be determined in this convoluted story is the market value of a rare historical document that may nonetheless have limited appeal for broadcasters.\nThe videotape was shot by an immigrant construction worker who had been making a sightseeing tape for a friend, and its existence was not widely known until reported in The New York Times, Sunday. The cameraman, Pavel Hlava, was riding in a sport utility vehicle from Brooklyn to Manhattan on Sept. 11.\nThe first impact was caught on tape as the vehicle was approaching the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Upon emerging from the tunnel, Hlava pointed the camera at the burning north tower and caught the second plane hitting the World Trade Center.\nOnly one other tape, by French filmmakers who had been making a documentary on firefighters, exists that shows the first plane hitting the tower. No known video shows both impacts. Federal officials are said to have interest in the video because it could help determine the speed of the first plane as it approached the World Trade Center.\nABC News was given a copy of the video last week by Mike Cohen, said Jeffrey Schneider, network spokesman. He's described in the Times as the man who drove the SUV that day, Hlava's boss, who believes the tape should not be sold for profit.\nThe network made plans to air it Sunday morning on "This Week." It was shown in New York City, where the Sunday political show airs earlier than in the rest of the country, and host George Stephanopoulos made a point of saying the network hadn't paid for it.\nABC immediately heard from Walter Karling, a free-lance photographer acting as an agent for Hlava, who called into question ABC's right to air the video. ABC quickly rearranged the broadcast so the footage was not shown in the rest of the country, Schneider said.\nABC remains "in a dialogue" with Hlava's representatives about future airings, Schneider said.\nKarling said that ABC was made aware Friday that it did not have the right to show the video for free. Schneider said that ABC believed it was dealing "in good faith" with the person responsible for the video.\nNeither man would not comment on how much is being asked for the video. Karling said he's working to get the video released and to protect Hlava's rights to the material.\n"Any financial remuneration is of last and least importance," he said. \nKarling referred further questions to a lawyer, Bob Reicher, who did not immediately return a call for comment.\nRights to air the video were offered to both CBS and NBC News over the weekend, according to executives at both networks who spoke on condition of anonymity. At one network, the figure of $40,000 was mentioned. At another, talk of a six-figure fee was bandied about.\nBoth networks rejected the overtures.\nAlthough the Hlava video is unique, all the networks have compelling footage of the second plane hitting the towers, the buildings burning and eventually collapsing. Because that video is upsetting to many viewers, the networks have used it very judiciously since after the first few days following the Sept. 11 attacks.\nFor that reason -- despite the curiosity value -- it's questionable whether the networks would place great monetary value on Hlava's tape because of limited opportunities to show it.\n"I don't know if we would want to air it again or not," Schneider said.
(09/04/03 6:15am)
NEW YORK -- If you see some celebrity interviews on "60 Minutes," the correspondents are probably holding their noses.\nMorley Safer, Steve Kroft and Lesley Stahl didn't hide their distaste Wednesday for the hottest trend in their line of work. Celebrity chats are such winners for newsmagazines that NBC and ABC this summer arranged for help from entertainment news shows in landing them.\n"This cloying by various television reporters for the right to interview the slut du jour just becomes kind of a silly joke, something out of 'Saturday Night Live,'" Safer said at a panel discussion arranged by the National Television Academy.\nHe acknowledged, though, that "60 Minutes" wasn't immune to chasing after the big "gets," a TV phrase that Safer detests.\nOver the past year, interviews with Whitney Houston, Sharon Osbourne, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have been unexpected ratings hits. ABC, NBC and Fox competed feverishly during February sweeps for footage of Michael Jackson talking.\nAfter noticing that NBC News used its corporate relationship with "Access Hollywood" to land the Affleck and J.Lo interview, ABC agreed to share celebrity chats with another syndicated program, "Entertainment Tonight."\nStahl and Kroft noted that entertainment celebrities are usually the most demanding interview subjects, in terms of what they will talk about and when they will appear -- usually to promote their latest projects. Affleck and Lopez only talked about their romance when their bomb movie, "Gigli," came out.\n"It's made doing these interviews a little more distasteful for all of us," Kroft said. "It's turned us all into shills."\nMore often than not, Stahl said, these celebrities aren't particularly interesting.\n"Most of the time, we walk away from them," said "60 Minutes" executive producer Don Hewitt. During the past year, "60 Minutes" has interviewed Nicole Kidman, Sheryl Crow and Billy Crystal.\nUsually a comfortable profit center for CBS, "60 Minutes" has more leeway to say "no" than its competitors. Hewitt, creator of television's first and still most popular newsmagazine, estimated "60 Minutes" has generated more than $2 billion in revenue for CBS in the show's 35-year history.\n"When you make money, they leave you alone," Hewitt said. "That's really why you want to have a profitable broadcast."\n"60 Minutes" has been showing signs of wear lately, losing some 10 million viewers over the past decade and having one of the oldest audiences. CBS announced earlier this year that Hewitt would step down at the end of the upcoming season.\nWhile praising advertisers, Hewitt was interrupted during the panel by "60 Minutes" curmudgeon Andy Rooney, who noted how commercials have cut in to the broadcast time.\n"The show is 42 minutes long now and that's hurt it," Rooney said.\nHewitt shot back: "How do you think they get your salary?"\n"Thank God for the ratings," Safer said. "If it wasn't for the ratings, we wouldn't all be millionaires"
(04/07/03 5:30am)
NEW YORK -- NBC News correspondent David Bloom, one of the network's most prominent young stars and a near constant television presence reporting from the Iraqi desert, died Sunday from an apparent blood clot, the network said.\nThe 39-year-old co-anchor of the weekend "Today" show was about 25 miles south of Baghdad and packing gear early in the morning when he suddenly collapsed.\nHe never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead from a pulmonary embolism after being airlifted to a nearby field medical unit, said Allison Gollust, a spokeswoman for NBC News. She said his death was not combat-related.\nBloom was the second American journalist to die while covering the war. Michael Kelly, editor-at-large for The Atlantic Monthly and a columnist for The Washington Post, was killed Thursday night along with a U.S. soldier when their Humvee plunged into a canal.\nBoth Bloom and Kelly were traveling with the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division.\nNBC News had built a special vehicle, dubbed the "Bloom-mobile," to send strikingly clear pictures of him riding atop a tank through the Iraqi desert. He reported memorably on the sandstorms that briefly delayed American forces.\n"He was both a genuinely nice guy and an incredibly tenacious reporter," NBC News President Neal Shapiro said. "He wouldn't be beaten on a story. He always kept us in the game."\nFrom the Iraqi desert, Bloom reported on what the American forces were doing militarily, but he also took the time to convey what their lives were like there, including the meals they were eating and what it was like trying to work in the middle of a sandstorm.\n"He was a rising star here," Shapiro said.\nBloom, a native of Edina, Minn., lived in the New York area with his wife, Melanie, and three daughters. After attending Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif., Bloom started his career as a reporter for NBC-owned WTVJ in Miami in 1989. He joined NBC News in Chicago in 1993, moving to Los Angeles in 1995.\nHe became a White House correspondent for NBC in 1997, during the Clinton administration. He reported on presidential races, the O.J. Simpson trial, the Washington-area sniper shooting and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.\nFormer President Clinton said Sunday that Bloom's "integrity and good humor will be missed."\n"David Bloom was a smart, energetic professional whose enthusiasm for the job was evident in every question he asked and every story he covered," Clinton said.\nShaken NBC colleagues, including "Today" co-anchor Soledad O'Brien, paid tribute on the network's broadcasts Sunday. "It's a hard morning for all of us," Katie Couric said.\nBloom, who had no apparent health problems, was indefatigable during the Gulf War. He reported at all hours for NBC News broadcasts, and also for the cable outlets MSNBC and CNBC.\nOn the Monday after the war started, Bloom delivered live reports at 2:22 a.m. ET for MSNBC, at 6:55, 7:09 and 8:04 for "Today," at 10:43 for NBC, 10:47 for MSNBC, 11:12 for NBC, 12:31 p.m. for NBC, 12:36 and 2:33 for MSNBC, at 6:37 for NBC's "Nightly News," and at 8:07 and 9:35 again for MSNBC, according to The Washington Post.\n"Given the fact that we're filing at all hours of the day and night, you try to pace yourself and get a little sleep," Bloom told the Post. "You're sleeping with your knees propped up around you."\nThat may have been a risk factor: blood clots frequently form in legs when they've been immobilized and travel through the body, said Dr. Harold Palevsky, chief of pulmonary critical care with the University of Pennsylvania health system.\nDehydration can also be a factor. Palevsky said Army medics, trained and equipped to stop bleeding, may have been less prepared in the desert for a pulmonary embolism.\nABC News President David Westin said his network was deeply saddened by Bloom's death.\n"David was a great journalist and a vigorous competitor; he made all of us better by the standards he set," Westin said. "Our thoughts are with his family, our friends and colleagues at NBC News, and all of our colleagues still in the field"