Media Scribbler

In a country where each day seems to bring more “reality” with job losses and stocks plummeting, could TV watchers be looking for a little less reality television? This season’s ratings point toward “yes”.
According to the Los Angeles Times, several network mainstays are performing so badly that their futures are now in doubt. Fox’s “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?,” has lost nearly half its share of the 18-to-49-year-old demographic since last year, and viewership for NBC’s “Deal Or No Deal” has falled nearly 29 percent for its Wednesday show. Even ABC’s “Dancing With The Stars” has lost 9 percent …read more

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Have you ever wondered if liberals spend their non-politico time watching high-minded environmental documentaries, while conservatives stick to family-friendly fare on TLC? Well, you might be surprised.
Nielsen IAG has released data about which cable television programs are “most engaging” among self-described Republicans and Democrats, meaning the shows they actually pay attention to.

Cable Series:
Highest Bipartisan Engagement
Network
Cable Series:
Highest Republican Engagement
Network
Cable Series:
Highest Democrat Engagement
Network

The Cleaner
A&E
South Park
COMEDY
The Colbert Report
COMEDY

Real Housewives of Orange County
BRAVO
Cash Cab
DSC
Deadliest Catch
DSC

The Next Food Network Star
FOOD
Damages
FX
Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia
FX

HGTV Design Star
HGTV
Battle 360
HISTORY
Ax Men
HISTORY

Army Wives
LIFE
Doctor Who
SCIFI
Tin Man
SCIFI

The Hills
MTV
The Bill Engval Show
TBS
My Boys
TBS

What Not to Wear
TLC
Rock of Love With Bret Michaels
VH1
I Love …read more

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Seriously, did anyone watch “Saturday Night Live” last night to see Anna Faris from “The House Bunny”? When word leaked that Tina Fey was going to be doing another Sarah Palin impersonation, suddenly enough people found a reason to stop watching SportsCenter after the Georgia-Alabama game for the show to get a 6.0 Nielsen rating share. The Saturday primetime show with the most viewers on the nets, “48 Hours Mystery“, had a 5.0.

If you aren’t in America (blame NBC and Hulu) or don’t want to view the clip, Amy Poehler did a surprisingly good Katie Couric impression as Fey/Palin answered …read more

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Even thought “Heroes” may not have burned up the airwaves Monday with record ratings, NBC execs can rest assured that their show is being watched. Kinda.
TorrentFreak says that Mininova, which is possibly the biggest P2P tracker in the world, got 10 million downloads in a single day. The increase is presumed to be mostly because of “Heroes”. Other BitTorrent trackers reported similar jumps for Monday.
Stats from TorrentFreak say that, across all BitTorrent sites, the two episodes from “Heroes’” season opening were downloaded well over a million times each.
The folks at NBC and Hulu really shouldn’t be too upset, because 92 percent of …read more

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The big word that NBC has been putting out about “Heroes” in recent weeks is that the new season is so incredibly awesome that it will bring the viewers back who tuned out during its’ second season.
Well, if that’s the case, it’s going to probably take a few more weeks for it to happen. Although it’s not all bad news for the superhero drama, they were definitely overshadowed on their premiere night by another show’s debut.
“Dancing With the Stars” won the Monday night ratings with 21.12 million viewers from 8 p.m. to -10 p.m, according to early Nielsen results. The …read more

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- If you’re sick of “90210″ hype, then I’ve got some really bad news for you — the CW has picked it up for a full-season run. The show, which was originally ordered for 13 episodes, has managed to keep up its ratings enough for the CW to make the leap of faith. Another good sign is the addition of writer-producer Rebecca Kirschner, who worked on “Gilmore Girls” and  “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
- Fox has ordered 13 episodes of Imagine/20th Century Fox TV’s “Lie To Me”, which is slated to star Tim Roth as a human lie detector who can …read more

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Alan Ball’s time at HBO won’t be “Six Feet Under” anytime soon, as network execs announced Wednesday that they have ordered a second season of his new vampiric drama, “True Blood”.
Even though the show took a little time to gain critical traction, the premiere episode netted about 4 million viewers total. But the second episode of the show about futuristic Southern vampires who feast upon synthetic blood picked up 26 percent more viewers than the first, which was enough to qualify it as a success for the net.
The series, which is based on a series of …read more

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Even if fans of the Jonas Brother are still smarting from jokes about purity rings, Russell Brand’s stint on the MTV Video Music Awards appears to have been a success. The VMAs averaged 8.4 million total viewers and became cable’s No. 3 most-watched program of the week, behind speeches from John McCain and Sarah Palin at the Republican National Convention.
That was a huge improvement from the 7.1 million who tuned in for Britney Spears’ trainwreck performance at the 2007 VMA’s. Brand told UK’s “The Sun” that MTV execs were thrilled with the 20 percent bump, and claimed they have already …read more

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For the cable news networks, the national Presidential conventions are like the Olympics in ratings. CNN is going gangbusters with their Democratic National Convention coverage, and pulled in averaged 5.38 million viewers from 10 to 11 p.m. Wednesday, when VP nominee Joe Biden spoke and Presidential nominee Barack Obama made a “surprise” appearance. That was only slightly less than NBC’s 5.8 million viewers for the same time period, and CNN’s average for the night was up 95 percent over their coverage of the same night during the 2004 convention.
Unfortunately for the folks who make the programming decisions at CNN …read more

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Finally, one channel found a way to beat NBC’s Olympic coverage, if only for one night, with the tween set.
According to Multichannel News, “Cheetah Girls: One World” drew more than 6.2 million viewers Friday night, directly against the prime-time Olympic coverage on NBC. Moreover, it actually built its audience 14 percent throughout the night,
The film, starring Adrienne Bailon, Kiely Williams and Sabrina Bryan, was the night’s No. 1 telecast overall among kids 6-11 (2.8 million) and Tweens 9-14 (2.4 million), according to Disney Channel officials.
“Cheetah Girls: One World” is now the second biggest film on TV this summer, right behind “Camp Rock”. And …read more

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