George Clooney in Ocean's 13 courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Ted Koppel will be honored with a lifetime achievement award at the 28th Annual News & Documentary Emmys.... The one that isn't Ebert, Richard Roeper, is hosting Starz Inside, a monthly Starz series covering a variety of cinematic topics. The show debuts Sept. 24.... USA Network has nabbed rights to Ocean's Thirteen, License to Wed and Blood Diamond.... Fox and MySpace are teaming with the Producers Guild on The Storyteller Challenge, an online competition in which the best five- to seven-minute TV-pilot presentations win $25,000. Look for a September launch.
read more
Ted Koppel, Koppel on Discovery
Having left Nightline and ABC in November after 25 years, Ted Koppel is now the managing editor of the Discovery Channel. He spoke with TV Guide about his first project in his new home, Koppel on Discovery: The Price of Security (premiering Sunday at 8 pm/ET), a three-hour documentary and town-hall meeting about U.S. security post-9/11.
TV Guide: How do we balance safety with liberty?Ted Koppel:
read more
Smallville's Tom Welling and Allison Mack
In Part 1 of TVGuide.com's "You Asked for It" Q&A with Allison Mack, the Smallville star weighed in on her supporters' mind-bending "Chlois" theory, as well as her absence from the CW network's fall ad campaign. Here, your patience in waiting for Part 2 is rewarded with Mack's take on The Kiss, the "new" Clark, and the A-list beauty she thinks is supercool.
TVGuide.com: Let's talk about The Kiss, the scorching lip-lock Chloe planted on Clark in the season finale. Do they talk about it as the new season begins [on Sept. 28]?Allison Mack: It's mentioned in the first episode, but Chloe is pretty determined to not be in a relationship with Clark right now, just because of the dynamic of th
read more
Eddie Kaye Thomas, 'Til Death
Sure, Everybody Loves Raymond, but will everybody love Brad Garrett's new sitcom, Fox's 'Till Death? The series, premiering tonight at 8 pm/ET, presents Garrett and Joely Fisher (Desperate Housewives) as Eddie and Joy Stark, longtime marrieds who get the worst possible new neighbors: blissful, idealistic newlyweds. Playing Jeff Woodcock, the optimistic yin to Garrett's cynical yang, is the
read more
In the good old days — say, a month ago — Nightline (weekdays at 11:35 pm/ET, ABC) spending a week in war-torn Iraq would have been something truly special. But Ted Koppel is gone, and with him goes a tradition allowing for context and perspective.
Instead, in the first week of a jumbled Nightline makeover, three correspondents/anchors jousted for airtime most nights. In the process, Terry Moran’s first-person stories — highlighted by a ride-along on a dangerous night patrol with U.S. and Iraqi troops — were just part of a very mixed bag.
The new Nightline isn’t terrible, but it no longer seems as essential because it feels so much less distinctive. In look and tone, especially when ill-chosen coanchor Martin Bashir revs up his strident tabloid engine, this Nightline lite resembles an uneasy cross of (yawn) the evening news and (yuck) a 20/20-style newsmagazine. Given its multitop
read more
Martin Bashir, Cynthia McFadden and Terry Moran
This week Ted Koppel signed off of ABC's Nightline for the final time. Starting Monday the torch will be passed to a new generation of anchors for the respected late-night news show: White House correspondent Terry Moran, Primetime's Cynthia McFadden, and Martin Bashir, the British TV journalist who made his name in the U.S. with his explosive 2003 documentary about troubled pop superstar Michael Jackson. So what will the new Nightline look like? The Biz asked executive producer James Goldston.
TVGuide.com: In recent years, Nightline has often been taped earlier in the evening, but you're going to be live every night. Why do you feel it is necessary to go live again?Goldston: It's a nightly broadcast that makes a point of analyzing what's going on in the world in [the most] informative way possible. For me, that means doing it live. Why wouldn't a show like this be live?
read more
Donnie Wahlberg is developing a TV project that will explore his journey from the streets of Boston to '80s superstardom with New Kids on the Block, Variety reports.... Also on the development front, WB has greenlit an hourlong soap pilot set in Washington, D.C., entitled The Body Politic.... For his final Nightline on Nov. 22, Ted Koppel will interview Tuesdays with Morrie author Mitch Albom.
read more
Question: You're the man to ask: What do you think of Nightline going from a one-topic format to a three-topic format, and of the three new hosts — Martin Bashir, Cynthia McFadden and Terry Moran — and their previous work? Personally, I'd keep the one-topic format and Moran as sole host, and just send McFadden and Bashir home. Your thoughts?
Answer: Sounds to me like you've already made up your mind, but I can't afford to do that. There's no question Ted Koppel's departure leaves a gaping chasm in the landscape of TV news in general and Nightline in particular. The new version sounds a bit busy to me, but perhaps as it evolves, Terry Moran will become more of a central anchor figure. Who can say? I'm not averse to the three-topic format, depending on the news day. I'm betting when a story like Katrina or a Supreme Court appointment comes along, it'll stick to a single-topic focus. (That said, many's the night I would tune in to Nightline for the opening news report but bail before th ...
read more
Sean McManus
As a boy, Sean McManus stood nearby as his sportscaster father, Jim McKay, reported live on the kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. ABC Sports president Roone Arledge was overseeing the network's extraordinary coverage and would eventually take over the network's news division, building it into an industry leader. So it was hard not to refer to Arledge when McManus, president of CBS Sports since 1996, added CBS News to his portfolio. He takes over for Andrew Heyward on Nov. 7. The Biz recently spoke to McManus about the challenges he faces in his new job.
TVGuide.com: You must be pleased with the comparisons to Roone Arledge, especially because he and your father put ABC News on the map with the Munich coverage.Sean McManus: The biggest event in my father's professional career happened to be a news event, not a sports event, and I was lucky enough to spend that entire period in the stud
read more
Has Ted Koppel been doing the work of three people for the past 25 years? Seems that way, as ABC has announced that Terry Moran, Cynthia McFadden and Martin Bashir will share the Nightline anchoring duties beginning Nov. 28, after Koppel bids the program adieu on Nov. 22.
read more
