Sep 2006
Thursday night war zone: Week 2
09/29/06 12:34 PM Ed Bark |Permalink
By ED BARK
The premiere of Ugly Betty helped beautify ABC's prime-time ratings Thursday, pacing the network to an overall narrow win for the night among advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds. CBS took Thursday in total viewers, with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation nipping ABC's Grey's Anatomy after losing last week's Round 1.
National ratings from Nielsen Media Research showed Betty pulling 16.3 million viewers overall in Thursday's first hour of prime-time. That's ABC's best showing for a scripted series in that slot since an Aug. 25, 1994 episode of Matlock.
Still, the competing third episode of CBS' Survivor: Cook Islands beat Betty by slim margins in both total viewers and 18-to-49-year-olds. That left NBC's two best comedies, My Name Is Earl and The Office, trailing far behind while Fox continued to crash and burn with two episodes of Brad Garrett's new sitcom, the fittingly titled 'Til Death
CSI, with the night's biggest overall audience haul (23.8 million), edged Grey's by a pencil-thin 290,000 viewers after losing last week by 2.8 million. Grey's still prevailed handily in the 18-49 demo while NBC's Deal or No finished far out of the money.
NBC's venerable ER remained the top draw among younger viewers against two newcomers -- CBS' Shark and ABC's Six Degrees. But the James Woods lawyer drama carried the day for CBS in total viewers with 14.6 million. Runnerup ER had 14..2 million viewers and Six Degrees dipped to 9 million.
Upshot: NBC is strictly an also-ran on a night it dominated for two decades. CBS and now ABC are the new big dogs.
The premiere of Ugly Betty helped beautify ABC's prime-time ratings Thursday, pacing the network to an overall narrow win for the night among advertiser-craved 18-to-49-year-olds. CBS took Thursday in total viewers, with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation nipping ABC's Grey's Anatomy after losing last week's Round 1.
National ratings from Nielsen Media Research showed Betty pulling 16.3 million viewers overall in Thursday's first hour of prime-time. That's ABC's best showing for a scripted series in that slot since an Aug. 25, 1994 episode of Matlock.
Still, the competing third episode of CBS' Survivor: Cook Islands beat Betty by slim margins in both total viewers and 18-to-49-year-olds. That left NBC's two best comedies, My Name Is Earl and The Office, trailing far behind while Fox continued to crash and burn with two episodes of Brad Garrett's new sitcom, the fittingly titled 'Til Death
CSI, with the night's biggest overall audience haul (23.8 million), edged Grey's by a pencil-thin 290,000 viewers after losing last week by 2.8 million. Grey's still prevailed handily in the 18-49 demo while NBC's Deal or No finished far out of the money.
NBC's venerable ER remained the top draw among younger viewers against two newcomers -- CBS' Shark and ABC's Six Degrees. But the James Woods lawyer drama carried the day for CBS in total viewers with 14.6 million. Runnerup ER had 14..2 million viewers and Six Degrees dipped to 9 million.
Upshot: NBC is strictly an also-ran on a night it dominated for two decades. CBS and now ABC are the new big dogs.
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Clinton and Wallace: This time it's personal
09/25/06 01:07 AM Ed Bark |Permalink
By ED BARK
Bill Clinton vs. Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday might be replayed and chewed on more than Matt Lauer vs. Tom Cruise.
After all, the former leader of the free world was throwing punches this time, not just some strange-acting film star prone to jumping on couches. In case you haven't caught it yet, go here.
Clinton, talking to Fox News Sunday for the first time ever, had an interest in promoting his three-day Global Initiative in New York. So some compromises had to be made in order to get the interview at all.
"The ground rules were simple," Wallace told viewers before the fireworks began. "Fifteen minutes split evenly between the Global Initiative and anything else we wanted to ask."
Wallace indeed began with a pair of marshmallows, which Clinton congenially answered. Then he threw something of a right-cross, telling the ex-president that many emailers wanted this question answered: "Why didn't you do more to put bin Laden and Al Qaeda out of business when you were president?"
"I'm being asked this on the Fox network," Clinton began before also chiding "their little Pathway to 9/11" miniseries on ABC, which provoked a storm of controversy earlier this month.
Leaning in and gesticulating, he lengthily berated "right-wingers" for wanting it both ways on bin Laden. Those who "now say I didn't do enough said I did too much --- same people," Clinton said.
Eventually, and abruptly, he shifted his focus to a surprised Wallace.
"So you did Fox's bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me."
Furthermore, "You set this meeting up because you're going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because (News Corp. chairman) Rupert Murdoch's supporting my work on climate change. You said you'd spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7- billion plus in three days from 215 different commitments. And you don't care."
Wallace protested and then said rather jovially, "I didn't think this was going to set you off on such a tear."
But Clinton was rolling now, rebuffing Wallace's repeated efforts to revisit the Global Initiative topic. He urged his interviewer to read White House counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke's book about the war on terrorism. "And you've got that little smirk on your face, and you think you're so clever."
Sheesh. Fox News Channel regularly demonstrates a conservative tilt, but Chris Wallace isn't the guy to insult and browbeat about it. The former ABC newsman is the fairest in the land at Fox. Clinton, on the other hand, came off as churlish, childish and boorish as the interview progressed. Then he finally simmered down, and the closing several minutes became relatively collegial.
Of course, most people already have taken sides. You're either for Fox News Channel or against it, for Bill Clinton or against him. But any objective martian would agree that Clinton over-did it on Sunday. He could have made his points concisely and forcefully. Instead he kept firing away, eventually shooting blanks.
Bill Clinton vs. Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday might be replayed and chewed on more than Matt Lauer vs. Tom Cruise.
After all, the former leader of the free world was throwing punches this time, not just some strange-acting film star prone to jumping on couches. In case you haven't caught it yet, go here.
Clinton, talking to Fox News Sunday for the first time ever, had an interest in promoting his three-day Global Initiative in New York. So some compromises had to be made in order to get the interview at all.
"The ground rules were simple," Wallace told viewers before the fireworks began. "Fifteen minutes split evenly between the Global Initiative and anything else we wanted to ask."
Wallace indeed began with a pair of marshmallows, which Clinton congenially answered. Then he threw something of a right-cross, telling the ex-president that many emailers wanted this question answered: "Why didn't you do more to put bin Laden and Al Qaeda out of business when you were president?"
"I'm being asked this on the Fox network," Clinton began before also chiding "their little Pathway to 9/11" miniseries on ABC, which provoked a storm of controversy earlier this month.
Leaning in and gesticulating, he lengthily berated "right-wingers" for wanting it both ways on bin Laden. Those who "now say I didn't do enough said I did too much --- same people," Clinton said.
Eventually, and abruptly, he shifted his focus to a surprised Wallace.
"So you did Fox's bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me."
Furthermore, "You set this meeting up because you're going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because (News Corp. chairman) Rupert Murdoch's supporting my work on climate change. You said you'd spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7- billion plus in three days from 215 different commitments. And you don't care."
Wallace protested and then said rather jovially, "I didn't think this was going to set you off on such a tear."
But Clinton was rolling now, rebuffing Wallace's repeated efforts to revisit the Global Initiative topic. He urged his interviewer to read White House counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke's book about the war on terrorism. "And you've got that little smirk on your face, and you think you're so clever."
Sheesh. Fox News Channel regularly demonstrates a conservative tilt, but Chris Wallace isn't the guy to insult and browbeat about it. The former ABC newsman is the fairest in the land at Fox. Clinton, on the other hand, came off as churlish, childish and boorish as the interview progressed. Then he finally simmered down, and the closing several minutes became relatively collegial.
Of course, most people already have taken sides. You're either for Fox News Channel or against it, for Bill Clinton or against him. But any objective martian would agree that Clinton over-did it on Sunday. He could have made his points concisely and forcefully. Instead he kept firing away, eventually shooting blanks.
Scalpel, please: Grey's bloodies CSI
09/22/06 03:31 PM Ed Bark |Permalink
By ED BARK
Maybe CBS had it right when its executives positioned powerful CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as an underdog against ABC's poaching Grey's Anatomy
Thursday night's first big face-off was impressively won by Grey's, which had 25.4 million viewers to CSI's 22.6 million, according to final national numbers from Nielsen Media Research. More important to ABC, Grey's beat CSI by a resounding 43 percent margin among advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds. And it came close to doubling CSI's ratings in the 18-to-34 demo.
For the full 2005-'06 season, CSI averaged 25.1 million total viewers and Grey's 19.7 million in its old Sunday night slot. But Grey's had the better of it with 18-to-49-year-olds, drawing 11.3 million per episode compared to CSI's 10.7 million.
Most prognosticators expected Grey's to continue its winning ways this season with younger viewers while falling short of CSI in total viewers. It's early, and that could happen as the season wears on. Still, the opening night results sent a high-voltage shock through CBS' corporate HQ.
CBS rebounded a bit with James Woods' new Shark, which had 14.7 million total viewers to edge ABC's premiere of Six Degrees (13.3 million). But Shark sank to third in the 18-to-49 ratings, losing to both Degrees and NBC's 13th season premiere of ER, which took the top spots in both ratings categories.
Maybe CBS had it right when its executives positioned powerful CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as an underdog against ABC's poaching Grey's Anatomy
Thursday night's first big face-off was impressively won by Grey's, which had 25.4 million viewers to CSI's 22.6 million, according to final national numbers from Nielsen Media Research. More important to ABC, Grey's beat CSI by a resounding 43 percent margin among advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds. And it came close to doubling CSI's ratings in the 18-to-34 demo.
For the full 2005-'06 season, CSI averaged 25.1 million total viewers and Grey's 19.7 million in its old Sunday night slot. But Grey's had the better of it with 18-to-49-year-olds, drawing 11.3 million per episode compared to CSI's 10.7 million.
Most prognosticators expected Grey's to continue its winning ways this season with younger viewers while falling short of CSI in total viewers. It's early, and that could happen as the season wears on. Still, the opening night results sent a high-voltage shock through CBS' corporate HQ.
CBS rebounded a bit with James Woods' new Shark, which had 14.7 million total viewers to edge ABC's premiere of Six Degrees (13.3 million). But Shark sank to third in the 18-to-49 ratings, losing to both Degrees and NBC's 13th season premiere of ER, which took the top spots in both ratings categories.
Review -- Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on
Goldwater
09/18/06 12:15 AM Ed Bark |Permalink
1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater speaks his mind. HBO photo
By ED BARK
Lionized in death, vilified in life? Barry Goldwater, branded a mad bomber in the 1964 presidential campaign, is seen in retrospect as a politician who actually had the courage of his convictions. Imagine taking positions without first filtering them through focus groups. That's right, kids. Back in the day, some public servants actually used to operate that way.
HBO's 90-minute Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater (Monday night, Sept. 18, at 8 central, 9 eastern) views the strong-willed Arizona senator through the at times dewy eyes of his granddaughter, CC. She was five years old when he ran for president and lost in a historic landslide to President Lyndon Johnson. CC is all grown up now. As evidence, she opts to wear an attention-getting low-cut top that doesn't suit this mostly serious-minded documentary. Not that it's a federal offense or anything.
CC otherwise has gathered a very impressive array of interview subjects, most notably Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Edward Kennedy and former U.S. Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor, an early acolyte.
Mrs. Clinton, a "Goldwater girl" in the 1964 campaign, says she "admired his outspokenness, his wonderful sort of Western ways and values." Sen. Kennedy is an admirer, too, not of the late Goldwater's politics but of his straight-shooting style and substance. "He could differ, but he was never personal, never vindictive."
Goldwater's book, The Conscience of a Conservative, sold an astounding 3.5 million copies. But his presidential campaign slogan, "In your heart, you know he's right," became ripe for ridicule and derision. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. wasn't a fan. Goldwater's position against racial segregation but for states' rights made him a perceived arch enemy of the Deep South civil rights movement. "His election would be a tragedy and suicidal almost for the nation and the world," Dr. King said at the time.
The senator had other interests. He was an avid ham radio operator and an accomplished photographer whose pictures of Arizona's Navajo Indians remain stunningly vivid. Goldwater's relationships with his children could be problematic. Like many fathers of that era, he wasn't a big hugger or overall love-dispenser. Nor was he around that much.
"He was probably a better statesman than a father," says Barry Goldwater Jr., the spitting image of his old man. "But when you come to think of it, he was a good father."
Barry Jr., a less successful politician than his famous dad, speaks poignantly and emotionally of aiming to please and invariably falling short.
"We probably set too high a standard for ourselves," he says, his voice breaking. "We knew he loved us, but he had a hard time showing it and that probably hurt."
In later years, Goldwater supported gay rights and also was pro-choice. Both issues hit close to home. His grandson, Ty, is openly gay and his daughter, Joanne, had an abortion as a young woman. Goldwater also loathed the religious right's advances into politics and was instrumental in persuading President Nixon to resign in the waning days of Watergate.
"He enjoyed every minute of this thing, because he didn't like Nixon," says former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee. "He wasn't sabotaging Nixon, but he wasn't doing anything to cushion his fall."
Goldwater died in 1998. His ashes, along with wife, Peggy's, were sprinkled in his beloved Colorado River.
It's appropriate then that longtime Democratic strategist James Carville sees him as "clearly John the Baptist to (Ronald) Reagan," who won the presidency in 1980 as a conservative Republican cast in the Goldwater mold.
"Some of us think Goldwater won (in '64)," says conservative commentator George Will. "It just took 16 years to count the votes."
Grade: B
Returning series review: Old Christine
09/17/06 12:23 PM Ed Bark |Permalink
Julia Louis-Dreyfus sells herself in CBS' "Old Christine"
By ED BARK
Fresh off her best actress Emmy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus shows why she won it in the second season premiere of CBS' The New Adventures of Old Christine.
Her oft-befuddled but always bedazzling Christine Campbell gives CBS a potential heir to its three previous queens of comedy -- Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore. No, Louis-Dreyfus isn't in their league yet. She's getting closer by the year, though.
Monday's night's return (8:30 central, 9:30 eastern) finds Christine and her ex- , Richard (Clark Gregg), thinking about giving it another go. Recently bounced by "new Christine" (Emily Rutherford), he's been making himself very handy around the house. Some problems persist, though.
"I make him a couple of lists, he does a couple of errands," Christine tells her live-in brother, Matthew (Hamish Linklater). "He falls asleep on the couch, I go to bed, there's no sex. Oh my God, we're totally back together."
Their son, Richie (Trevor Gagnon), just starting fourth grade, thinks a reunion is already a done deal. He blurts this out to his hunky new teacher (guest star Blair Underwood), whom all the moms predictably ogle.
On the home front, making out just isn't working out. So it'll be no surprise to fans of the show to find Christine and Richard amicably back on the outs by episode's end.
All in all, it's a nice beginning to a show that Ms. Louis-Dreyfus has made her own. Comedic acting doesn't get much better these days.