WHITE SOX BEAT ANGELS, LOSE TO HOUSEWIVES
The Chicago White Sox may have won the American League pennant for the first time since 1959 by beating the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Sunday night but they were no match for the women of Wisteria Lane. Desperate Housewivesonce again overwhelmed the competition by posting an 18.0 rating and a 25 share in the 9:00 p.m. hour, while the ALCS finale averaged an 8.8/13. The baseball numbers didn’t even approach the 11.3/19 for the comparable game between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox a year ago. In fact, the game attracted fewer viewers than CBS’s Cold Case, which has continued to show surprising strength against Housewivesat 9:00 p.m. and increased its ratings to a 9.5/13 Sunday night. A football overrun at 7:00 p.m. helped CBS win the first hour of Sunday’s early-starting primetime with an 11.5/19. CBS held on to the lead at 8:00 with a delayed 60 Minutes scoring an 11.1/16. At 10:00 p.m., a 13.3/20 for Grey’s Anatomyhelped give ABC the overall win for the night.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
UNIONS OUT OF TUNE WITH IPOD DEAL
Last week’s surprise announcement by Apple that it had signed a deal with ABC that would allow it to sell a number of ABC and Disney Channel programs to buyers of its new video iPod especially surprised most of the unions that Disney has contracts with. They include: The Writers Guild of America, West; the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists; the Screen Actors Guild; the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America, East – all of whom claim that Disney did not talk to them about how their members will be compensated from such sales. In a joint statement, the unions said: “We have not yet heard from the responsible employers of our members. We look forward to a dialogue that ensures that our members are properly compensated for this exploitation of their work.” Meanwhile, reports began circulating over the weekend that both NBC and Warner Brothers have begun discussions with Apple about distributing their programming.
ABC NEWS SUFFERS NEW EMBARRASSMENT
ABC News, already embroiled in controversy over the accuracy of claims made on its Primetime Livemagazine show last week that lax security at the nation’s nuclear research reactors could result in a disastrous terrorist attack, suffered additional embarrassment over the weekend when its website headlined that white supremacists had rioted in Toledo, OH. In fact the disturbance involved a number of persons protesting a planned demonstration by neo-Nazis. It was covered live by Fox News Channel on Saturday, during which FNC’s Julie Banderas referred to it as a “racial war.” The situation received little attention on the other cable news networks.
NBC-UNIVERSAL DRAGS DOWN G.E.
NBC, which for years has far exceeded its rivals in total ad sales, slumped so badly in the last quarter that it seriously dragged down parent company GE’s overall results. According to the company’s quarterly filing with the SEC, revenue at NBC Universal – which includes not only the network but also the movie studio, the company’s cable stations, including MSNBC and CNBC, and theme parks – fell a whopping 26 percent in the third quarter from a year ago. However, in a statement, GE CEO Keith Sherin remarked, “We are rebuilding prime programming and we feel good about the progress we’ve made.”
MIKE WALLACE SAYS NETWORK “SUITS” WANT MORE INFOTAINMENT
Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace accused the TV network “suits” of being “more interested in money” than in enhancing their reputations for informing the public. In an appearance at Central Michigan University Thursday night, Wallace declared, “There is an awful lot of tabloid journalism on the air. … They want more infotainment in the news than there used to be.” In a turnaround, Wallace was interviewed on stage by Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, the tobacco industry whistleblower, who ignited an uproar when his appearance on 60 Minutes was blocked for a time by CBS lawyers who feared that it would prompt a lawsuit by Big Tobacco. The controversy gave rise to the movie The Insider.Although in the movie, Wallace is depicted as knuckling under to network pressure, saying that he didn’t want to end up broadcasting on National Public Radio, he said of Wigand, “This man is my hero. This is a man who put his career, his health and his kids in serious jeopardy because he believed in something. He believed cigarettes kill people, too many people and now particularly young people.” Wallace also lashed out at President Bush and those close to him for dodging his requests for an interview. “To this day, he is the only president in the last 50 years I’ve never interviewed. I’ve never even met him,” he said.
DOBBS CLAIMS “FAIR AND BALANCED” CLAIM IS “RIDICULOUS”
CNN business anchor Lou Dobbs has scoffed at the “fair and balanced” motto of his principal competitor, Fox News Channel. In an interview with the trade publication Radio Ink, Dobbs remarked, “The idea that a reporter has to be ‘fair and balanced’ is ridiculous. The fact is, the truth usually is not fair and it’s not balanced. Truth stands by itself. And the idea that something called fair and balanced is a substitute for truth and fact is mindless nonsense that has captured much of the national media.” He insisted that reporters have no obligation to report on both the Republican and Democratic views of every issue. “Does that mean if we had three major political parties there would be three sides to the truth? If we had four, there would be four. It’s utter nonsense. There is a non-partisan reality in every story, and it is our obligation to report that reality. And the hell with whether the viewer is a Democrat or Republican,” he said.
THE FOG CLOUDS BOX OFFICE
With little publicity or marketing, Sony’s horror flick The Fogcrept into some 3,000 theaters over the weekend and accounted for about $12.2 million in ticket sales. If estimates stand, it beat last weekend’s winner, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,by $500,000. Other new entries were fogbound. Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown managed to take in only $11 million for Paramount while New Line’s Dominofell with just $4.7 million. All in all the box office was down about 10 percent from the comparable weekend a year ago when the third week of
