matt.mitovich

Short Cuts: Ratings Eye Co-eds, Baywatch and More!

Nielsen Media Research announced on Monday that its people meters would begin to count college students who live away from home. The inclusion could result in as much as a 15 percent bump in the 18-34 demo.... After a six-year hiatus, Baywatch is returning to syndication starting in fall 2007.... The famed Second City improv group has inked a two-year, first-look deal with NBC Universal Television.... On Nov. 17, Style Network will premiere Split Ends, a reality series in which a hoity-toity Beverly Hills stylist trades places with a Middle America hairdresser.

Tue, Oct 10, 2006

This Just In: Smith Sidelined

According to a fresh programming advisory from CBS, Smith has had its Tuesdays-at-10 time slot stolen from right under its nose "until further notice."Filling the vacancy over the next four weeks will be repeats of CSI (Oct. 10) and Criminal Minds (Oct. 17 and 24), and a program-to-be-announced (Oct. 31).Amy Smart, my heart goes out to you, kiddo. (Call me!)

Fri, Oct 6, 2006

Ratings: Grey's Takes 2-1 Lead

This Thursday's 8 pm contest again went to Survivor: Cook Islands, which attracted an audience of 15.8 million to Ugly Betty's 14.2 mil (down nearly 2 mil from its premiere). In third place, My Name Is Earl had its best outing of the new season (9.9 mil), while The Office (8.77 mil) enjoyed a similar surge, up a mil from the previous week. In fifth place (behind baseball), Smallville drew 4.6 mil, down 450,000 (as was lead-out Supernatural) from its season opener.The 9 o'clock Grey's Anatomy-CSI face-off was a third straight squeaker, with ABC this time taking the title. Final score: Grey's 22.45 mil, CSI 21.225.At 10, ER jumped the Shark to reclaim the No. 1 spot, 14.6 million viewers to 13.75 mil. Bringing up the rear, Six Degrees (9.65 mil) lost a million heads versus last week, and this week saw a full 2.4 mil tune out in its second half-hour.

Fri, Oct 6, 2006

NBC Supes Up Heroes, Relocates Goat

NBC has ordered nine additional episodes of Heroes, making the Monday-night marvel the first new series of the fall to receive a full-season pickup. To date, Heroes has averaged 13.5 million viewers and has tied ABC's Brothers & Sisters as the top newbie among adults 18-49. On the other side of the spectrum, NBC's Kidnapped will finish up its recently truncated, 13-episode run on a new day, Saturday, starting Oct. 21. The thriller's Wednesday-at-10 berth is expected to be filled by Dateline NBC.

Fri, Oct 6, 2006

Mel Gibson Sits for GMA Jew&A

Good Morning America's Diane Sawyer has landed the first televised interview with Mel Gibson since the actor-filmmaker's scandalous July DUI arrest, during which he let loose with an anti-Semitic rant. The sit-down, which has already been taped, will air over two days, Oct. 12 and 13, reports Variety.

Fri, Oct 6, 2006

Bad News for Evening News' Katie?

A source at NBC tells the New York Post's Page Six that Ed Klein, who is at work on an unauthorized bio of Katie Couric, has found plenty of Peacockers to talk (albeit off the record) about the perky morning-gal-turned-evening-news-anchor  "And it isn't nice," says the snitch. "They are drudging up stuff that will be a nightmare for her. She wasnt very nice for a long time when she was here." Case in point: My own horribly placed insider tells me Katie would never share her Mystic Tan.

Fri, Oct 6, 2006

William Shatner, Alan Thicke Got Game

Per the Hollywood Reporter, William Shatner will boldly go where no man  save for Regis, Trebek and... OK, lots of others  has gone before when he hosts Show Me the Money, a new trivia-based game show that has just received a seven-episode order from ABC. Alan Thicke, meanwhile, has been tapped to host The Singing Office, a CBS reality pilot that will seek out America's best cubicle-confined crooners. Yeah, as if anyone can top my rendition of "Barbie Girl."

Fri, Oct 6, 2006

Coming Soon: Evil Dude Gets Burn'd

Touching Evil's Jeffrey Donovan has landed the lead in Burn Notice, USA Network's drama pilot about a special-ops agent who uses his training to try to uncover the reason he's been blacklisted.... Also per the Hollywood Reporter, Shiri Appleby (Roswell) will star as a fun-loving woman who tracks down her dad  only to learn he's an assassin  in the USA comedy pilot To Love and Die in L.A..... Showtime has picked up Meadowlands, an eight-episode drama about a family of four struggling to escape its troubled past via the witness-protection program, to premiere in summer 2007.

Fri, Oct 6, 2006

Sci Fi's Superhero to Fly Again

Who Wants to Be a Superhero?, having averaged 1.5 million viewers and credited with bringing 2.9 million newcomers to the Sci Fi Channel, has received an order for an expanded, 10-episode second season.

Fri, Oct 6, 2006

Lucas Previews Return of the Clone Wars

Star Wars patriarch George Lucas tells the Associated Press that he is hard at work on his new, 3-D computer-animated continuation of the Emmy-winning Clone Wars series that aired on Cartoon Network from 2003 to 2005, but has yet to sell it to a network. "It's a fun place to go," Lucas says of the series' setting, a civil war between the Republic and separatists led by Count Dooku. And while Clone Wars will feature such familiar characters as Anakin and Obi-Wan, Lucas promises "nobody famous" among the voice cast. I'm not quite sure if that excludes Luke-turned-voice-actor Mark Hamill.

Fri, Oct 6, 2006

Short Cuts: Elvis, The Wire and More!

Elvis Presley's three appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show are chronicled in a three-disc DVD set due for release on Nov. 21.... BET is in talks to air syndicated episodes of HBO's The Wire, starting with Season 1 and unspooling perhaps as soon as 1Q 2007.... Dane Cook  my current fave to play Fletch on the big screen (see related blog entry), and Jessica Simpson's apparent fave to play footsie (per the New York Post)  is taking his Tourgasm act to Las Vegas on Nov. 17.... Fox News Channel celebrates its 10th anniversary with Thank You America!, a two-hour special airing Sunday at 8 pm/ET and hosted by Chris Wallace and Martha MacCallum.

Fri, Oct 6, 2006

Ratings: Lost Versus... the Others

Dancing with the Stars' Vivica-vanquishing results show was Wednesday's 8 pm winner, drawing 17.35 million viewers to Jericho's 10.75 mil (down about 600,000) and Bones' 7.85. At 9, Lost and "Big Ben" led the pack with a season-premiere audience of 18.5 million, a full mil more than tuned in for the Season 2 finale last May. Coming in a very respectable No. 2 was Criminal Minds (15 mil), followed by a repeat of House (8.95). Yes, a repeat more than doubled a fresh One Tree Hill's audience (3.2 mil). Almost tripled it, one might say. Egads.Come 10 o'clock, the series premiere of ABC's The Nine lost a third of Lost's viewers, bringing in just under 12 million, which made for a second-place finish behind CSI: NY (15.6 mil). NBC's bad-news bearer, Kidnapped, meanwhile, had 5.3 million viewers, a full mil less than last week and down more than two mil from its debut.

Fri, Oct 6, 2006

Fox, CW Changes Confirmed; House Moves

In press releases arriving just minutes apart, Fox and the CW have officially confirmed several schedule changes. As rumored, Fox is moving Justice to Mondays at 9 (effective Oct. 23) and bumping Vanished to Fridays at 8 (as of Oct. 27), where it will be followed by Trading Spouses. Seizing Justice's Wednesday-at-9 berth is The Rich List, a new quiz show. And a new wrinkle: Standoff and House will trade Tuesday time slots, airing at 8 and 9, respectively (starting Oct. 31).As for the CW, it's pretty much as speculated: 7th Heaven and Runaway are moving from Monday to Sunday, swapping nights (as of this coming Monday) with Everybody Hates Chris/Girlfriends/The Game/All of Us.

Thu, Oct 5, 2006

I Find Myself Distracted by Jessica Simpson's...

Lips. Yes, her lips. As I took in a Wednesday screening of Jessica's new feature folly, Employee of the Month, I found myself positively transfixed by her large, plump, round and seemingly enhanced lips. And not in a good way, really. Employee of the Month is a cute and sometimes clever comedy, starring Dane Cook  now my No. 1 pick to fill Chevy Chase's tennis shoes in any new Fletch film  and Dax Shepard as bitter rival workers at Super Club (a badly "disguised" Costco superstore). But when J-Simp, the shared object of their affections, is on the screen, all you see are yes, those, but also her lips. I know there were reports in the celeb glossies months ago about Jessica possibly having had some "work" done on her pucker, and if true, it apparently was done mere seconds before she shot her scenes for EOTM. I plead ignorance about all things collagen and Botox, but whatever JS might (or might not) have had done seems to have affected her line delivery, as words aren't s...

Thu, Oct 5, 2006

Broken Angel: Farrah in Cancer Fight

TV icon Farrah Fawcett, who put in an appearance at this year's Emmys alongside her Charlie's Angels costars, is bracing for a battle with cancer after doctors discovered a malignant tumor  the size of two strawberries, by one account  in her lower intestine. Fawcett, 59, has reportedly already received radiation treatment and is now preparing for chemotherapy and surgery. "Please respect my privacy at this challenging time," the actress said on Wednesday in a statement to Entertainment Tonight.

Thu, Oct 5, 2006

Ratings: Was Mars Girl-Powered?

Dancing with the Stars, 18.3 million viewers from 8 to 9:30, yada yada yada.... Placing second at 8 pm was NCIS (15.5 mil), followed by Fox's baseball coverage (7.8 mil) and the premiere of Friday Night Lights (7.2 mil). At 9, The Unit (13.2 million) for its first half-hour lost to Stars, but come 9:30 it trounced Help Me Help You (10.4 mil), while Veronica Mars returned to an (albeit avid) audience of 3.3 mil  on par with its Season 2 opener, but managing only 69 percent retention out of "sister show" Gilmore Girls.The 10 o'clock battle as usual went to SVU (14.2 million), with the also-rans being Boston Legal (10.6 mil) and Smith (8.4 mil, down a million-plus from last week and a full 2.6 mil from its premiere).

Wed, Oct 4, 2006

24 Returns with Trailer, Four-Hour Premiere

Fox announced on Wednesday morning that Season 6 of 24, this year's most Emmy-adorned series, will kick off on Sunday, Jan. 14, and on Monday, Jan. 15, 2007, with a two-night, four-hour premiere. (Must. Rest. Brain. Cells.) An online countdown to 24's return commences today at www.24trailer.com, where an extended "Day Six" teaser will debut on Oct. 24, and the new season's first promo is set to air during Fox's coverage of the World Series' Game 3.Among the new faces appearing on 24 this season are Regina King (as President Wayne Palmer's sister), Peter MacNicol (as a presidential advisor), James Cromwell (as Jack's estranged father), Rena Sofer (as bad-guy Graham's wife), Kal Penn (Harold & Kumar), Marisol Nichols (In Justice), Harry Lennix (Commander in Chief) and David Hunt (Everybody Loves Raymond).

Wed, Oct 4, 2006

CBS Reschedules Class, Knights Moves

In a bid to bolster ratings for its freshman laffer, CBS is swapping time slots for The Class and How I Met Your Mother, Variety reports. Effective immediately, Ted, Barney, et al, will lead off Monday nights at 8 pm, with The Class to follow. ABC, meanwhile, has "indefinitely delayed" the planned Oct. 17 series premiere of Let's Rob Jeff Goldbum Let's Rob Mick Jagger Let's Rob... Knights of Prosperity, reportedly to give the show a better marketing push but also to perhaps let Help Me Help You benefit more from its current Dancing with the Stars lead-in.

Wed, Oct 4, 2006

Good News for Christine, Justice and Reno

CBS has granted a full-season pickup to The New Adventures of Old Christine, starring Emmy winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus.... Despite a persistent fourth-place finish in its Wednesdays-at-9 time slot  which is so not gonna get better starting tonight  Justice has received from Fox an order for three additional scripts. Per the Hollywood Reporter, Fox may opt to try the show in a new time slot once it returns from its hiatus for baseball play-offs.... Comedy Central has renewed Reno 911! for a fifth season.

Wed, Oct 4, 2006

Death Doesn't Become Brad Garrett

Fox freshman 'Til Death, which was already slated for a one-week production hiatus, will stay off the air for an additional week because series star Brad Garrett was dissatisfied with the most recent script, sources tell the Hollywood Reporter. The Emmy winner's primary beef: That the script wasn't for a show called "Everybody Loves Robert."

Wed, Oct 4, 2006

Guest Books: SNL Gets a House Call

Saturday Night Live's upcoming celebrity hosts include My Name Is Earl's Jaime Pressly (Oct. 7, with musical guest Corinne Bailey Rae), John C. Reilly (Oct. 21, with My Chemical Romance) and House's Hugh Laurie (Oct. 28, with Beck).... Jerry Seinfeld will make a rare in-studio guest appearance when he stops by longtime pal Spike Feresten's Fox Talkshow on Oct. 21.

Wed, Oct 4, 2006

Love Notes: Brad and Jen Engaged!

Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Esposito are engaged to be married, the couple's rep tells People. Let's just hope the Alias alum actually weds his honey, and not some Rambaldi-engineered doppelgänger. Oops, did you think this news was about someone else?... After weeks and weeks of gest-specul-ation, Tori Spelling is almost officially pregnant, friends of the 90210 alum tell the New York Post's Page Six. Spelling and new hubby Dean McDermott (who has a son with his previous Mrs.) are said to be overjoyed.

Wed, Oct 4, 2006