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Obama's speech shatters Nielsen ratings
Filed under: News, Programming, Ratings, Reality-Free 
The reviews from the political talking heads -- right and left -- have been mostly positive. The visuals were spectacular and riveting. History was made at Mile High Stadium in Denver last night when Senator Barack Obama accepted the nomination of the Democratic party as the first African-American presidential candidate. There were 80,000 people packed in the stadium, and now Nielsen has determined that 38 million people tuned in to watch on TV.
How impressive is that number? It's more than the opening ceremonies from the Beijing Olympics. It's also more than the 2008...
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Thoughts on coverage of the Democratic convention - VIDEO
Filed under: News, Video, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free  Watching the coverage of the Democratic convention has caused my old carpel tunnel syndrome to act up. I've been doing so much channel surfing; going from channel to channel to find just the right coverage has been a chore.
Good luck finding a balance between astute punditry, quality reporting, over-hyped production and clear coverage of the activities on the floor and stage by the political party. It's not easy. Here's some things, good and bad, that I've noticed in these first three days:
1) The Obama family are the Huxtables
After Michelle Obama's...
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Ryan Seacrest re-ups with E! until 2012
Filed under: News, Industry, Programming, Celebrities, Reality-Free  Who knew? When DJ Ryan Seacrest joined Brian Dunkleman as co-host on the first season of American Idol back in 2002 no one really thought he would go much farther than that. Fact is, many people thought it was Dunkleman who would go on to bigger and brighter things. Yet here we are, six years later, and Dunkleman is nowhere to be found while Seacrest has become a media mogul and one of the busiest personalities in the world of television. That presence will continue well into the next decade.
Seacrest...
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Rachel Maddow takes Dan Abrams' spot on MSNBC
Filed under: News, Programming, Reality-Free  If you watch MSNBC for the politics fix, no doubt you have seen Rachel Maddow. She's one of the talking heads, a politically savvy woman who has been featured on shows like Hardball with Chris Matthews and Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
In fact, she's been Keith's regular fill-in this summer, a sure sign that she's MSNBC's star on the rise. The network has just announced that Rachel Maddow has been chosen to replace MSNBC's Dan Abrams, bumping his show Verdict out of the primetime lineup.
Maddow is getting a great spot on MSNBC, right after Countdown at 9 p.m....
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Where do you get your news?
Filed under: News, OpEd, Ratings, Reality-Free  Pew Research Center's biannual survey on how Americans get their news revealed significant shifts underway from print to new media, and even from television to the internet. But it looks like that idiot box remains our number one source for just what's going on in the world around us. The article shows the demographics to be pretty much where you'd expect them to be as far as who goes where for their news. The younger, more affluent and/or more educated you are the more likely you are to go online for your news. The older, poorer and less educated you are...
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Is Nightline a goner?
Filed under: Late Night, News, Industry, Programming, Talk Show, Reality-Free  So we all know that Conan O'Brien is taking over for Jay Leno next year, and that when he does Leno might go some place else, perhaps ABC, which might bump Kimmel to 12:35am. But what about the other late night player in all of this,Nightline?
The long-running news show will probably be dumped and its employees out of jobs if ABC pays Leno a bunch of money to come over to the network to host a show at 11:35pm and go up against David Letterman. Even...
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Changes coming to the CNN lineup (unfortunately)
Filed under: News, Programming, Reality-Free  I can't tell you exactly what I'll be doing every weekday at 3pm starting September 8, but I do know one thing: I won't be watching CNN anymore.
New CNN Director of Programming Scott Matthews sent out an e-mail to the entire staff earlier this week outlining the on-air changes that will start on that day. Heidi Collins will anchor solo from 9am to 11am, then Tony "I Always Look Over To The Side For Some Reason" Harris takes over solo from 11am to 1pm, then Kyra Phillips (she's great!) does the 1pm to 3pm slot, and then...drumroll please...Rick Sanchez takes over...
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Despite karma dangers, Anderson Cooper isn't backing down - VIDEO
Filed under: News, Video, Celebrities  Well it looks like Anderson Cooper has started a full-on feud with the Lohans. We showed you the clip earlier of Cooper's "review" of Dina Lohan's E! reality series, Living Lohan, and now Dina Lohan is speaking out against CNN's silver fox. In an exclusive interview with OK! Magazine (seriously, does she only deal with media outlets that have exclamation points in their names?) Lohan delivers Cooper an ominous warning, saying, "this is bad Karma for him."
So is Cooper frightened by Dina Lohan's peroxided Long Island Voodoo? Of...
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The presidential debate moderators are chosen
Filed under: News, Reality-Free  John McCain wanted ten town hall style debates with Barack Obama, but after 22 Democratic debates, Barack said, "Thanks, but no thanks." So now the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates will meet three times: two traditional, one-on-one debates with a single moderator for each, and one townhall-style session with questions from the crowd.
The Commission on Presidential Debates announced that NBC's Tom Brokaw, PBS's Jim Lehrer, and CBS's Bob Schieffer will be the moderators, with Gwen Ifill, the host of PBS's Washington Week handling the chores for the one vice presidential debate.
What's interesting here is that of the big three, ABC...
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More from Keith Olbermann: Special comments, and reuniting with Dan Patrick
Filed under: News, Interviews, TCA Press Tour, Reality-Free  When I spoke to Keith Olbermann at the press tour a few weeks back, I mainly wanted to get his thoughts about the comments that Fox News' Chris Wallace made earlier in the tour. Essentially, Wallace said that MSNBC isn't objective in its election coverage because they have commentators like Olbermann -- who are perceived to be "in the tank" for Barack Obama -- serve as anchors. Olbermann's remarks in response were pointed, to say the least.
But while I had Keith poised in front of my voice recorder, I wanted to ask him some...
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