It was the $9 billion question: Could NFL owners and players reach an agreement to end the bitter lockout threatening the 2011 season? After a resounding yes on July 25, teams scrambled to get ready. Record-setting TV ratings last year cemented the game's status as America's favorite sport, but what can fans expect on the field in the wake of the time-consuming labor dispute? "Teams that had very little change are going to have a huge advantage once the season starts," says CBS analyst Rich Gannon. "Some teams that have new quarterbacks, new systems, they're going to struggle." As the season kicks off tonight, TV Guide Magazine asked NFL analysts to tackle five burning questions...
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Back in February 1983, when watching TV meant tuning in to ABC, CBS or NBC, 106 million people watched the final episode of M*A*S*H. Legend has it that the water pressure in New York City showed a noticeable drop during the commercial breaks. For 27 years, the M*A*S*H finale stood as the most watched TV show ever, and in an era when the average home has more than 100 channels to choose from, it seemed impossible that any single broadcast could amass that type of audience again.
But Super Bowl XLIV capped what had been a storybook season for the New
Orleans Saints, playing for a city that only a few years before gave viewers the horrific images of Hurricane Katrina...
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Oh, brother! There's nothing like a famous sibling rivalry to give an early game between the Indianapolis Colts and the New York Giants the sizzle of the postseason. Four years after big brother Peyton and the Colts outgunned Eli and the Giants it's Manning Bowl II on Sunday Night Football (Sept. 19, 8:15pm/7:15c, NBC).
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Fox has announced that "Idol Gives Back," the fund-raiser that in its inaugural edition generated $76 million for charity, this season will be broadcast Wednesday, April 9, from 8 to 10 pm/ET.Promising an event "bigger and more ambitious than ever," Fox thus far has lined up Bono, Brad Pitt, Reese Witherspoon, Miley Cyrus, Mariah Carey, Eli Manning, Peyton Manning, Fergie, Chris Daughtry, Carrie Underwood, Annie Lennox, John Legend and Snoop Dogg to participate. Kelly Clarkson must be busy. — Matt Mitovich
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Question: I don't imagine Saturday Night Live is on your radar, but I'm still a big fan of the show and rarely miss it. (Thank heaven for my DVR, which allows me to record the show and zip past the lamer sketches and lousy musical guests.) The last couple of years I've noticed a trend that's starting to irk me, and I'll use last week's show with Brian Williams as an example. He was a terrific host. The first two sketches he appeared in were hilarious (as a firefighter with a spot-on "New Yawk" accent and an underwhelmed Publishers Clearing House winner), but the rest of the night he only played "himself." Admittedly, he got off a great one-liner in the sketch about the Democratic debate: "The media's decided we just like Hillary better," or words to that effect. But I've noticed that almost every week now, the guest host is reduced to playing him- or herself in a preponderance of the sketches. Perhaps this technique works when the host is a nonperformer (say, Al Gore or Derek Jeter), ...
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