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Report: Leno To Receive $15M For Stepping Down
5 April 2013 12:09 PM, PDT
NBC agreed to pay Jay Leno $15 million as a “sweetener” to encourage him to step down in February as host of the Tonight show and allow Jimmy Fallon to take over, the New York Daily News reported on Thursday, citing unnamed industry sources. Leno’s current contract expires in September, but NBC reportedly wanted to make the changeover in February so that it could be promoted during its coverage of the Winter Olympics. While the pay-off sounds steep — it’s comparable to what Leno earns yearly to host the late-night show — it is well known that Leno banks all of »
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Leno Still Late Night King In 1St Quarter, But Kimmel Challenges
5 April 2013 12:08 PM, PDT
In his first full quarter competing against NBC’s Jay Leno and CBS’s David Letterman, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel drew solid if unspectacular ratings. He lost to his rivals in both the total adults category and in the key 18-49 age group. But he did come out ahead — albeit by a tiny margin — among the 18-34 demo. What is clear is that if the numbers hold through next February, when Leno is due to be replaced by Jimmy Fallon, Leno will be going out winners. For the quarter, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno averaged 3.54 million total adult viewers, »
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Idol Slides To Lowest Level Ever
5 April 2013 12:07 PM, PDT
Things aren’t getting any better for Fox’s American Idol. On Thursday it matched its series low with only 11.28 million viewers. The results episode at 8:00 p.m. was easily beaten by CBS’s The Big Bang Theory with 16.79 million viewers in the first half of the hour and by CBS’s Two and a Half Men with 13.58 million in the second half of the hour. Both CBS shows also dominated in the key 18-49 age group. On Wednesday, Idol drew its smallest audience for a performance episode — 11.84 million viewers. Yet that was good enough to beat shows on the other networks, »
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CNN Business Host Velshi Jumping To Al Jazeera America
5 April 2013 12:06 PM, PDT
Al Jazeera America has its first anchor. It announced on Thursday that it has signed CNN’s Ali Velshi to come aboard to host a business show in primetime, initially on a weekly basis and later on a daily (Monday through Friday). Velshi will be leaving CNN as its chief business correspondent today (Friday). In a statement, he said, “It’s a tremendous opportunity and I look forward to taking advantage of the extraordinary U.S. news-gathering capabilities the channel is building and working with such a diverse and talented group of colleagues to tell compelling stories that matter to Americans. »
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Leno’S Exit: A Round-up
4 April 2013 11:33 AM, PDT
With several TV columnists predicting that he is likely to become the biggest beneficiary of NBC’s decision to remove Jay Leno as host of the Tonight show and replace him with Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman seemed to be in particularly fine fettle Wednesday night. He opened his monologue by remarking, “I got a call from my mom today, she says, ‘Well, David, I see you didn’t get the Tonight show again.’” As the laughter subsided, he continued, “NBC, God bless ‘em, announced the official date for Jay Leno’s departure — no mention of his official date of return, »
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Seinfeld Crosses $3 Billion In Syndication Sales
4 April 2013 11:32 AM, PDT
Jerry Seinfeld’s decision to go out on top and turn down a reported $5-million-per-episode offer to produce a tenth season of his eponymous show has paid off beyond anyone’s imagination at the time, the London Independent indicated today (Thursday). The newspaper reported that recent negotiations for a fifth round of syndication deals have pushed total earnings for the 180 original episodes past $3 billion, netting Seinfeld himself and co-creator Larry David around $400 million each. The continuing popularity of the show in syndication, the newspaper said, has made its creators reluctant to offer episodes for download on Apple’s iTunes store. »
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Jon Stewart Jokes Trigger International Incident
4 April 2013 11:26 AM, PDT
It’s not likely that Jon Stewart will be taking a tour of the Egyptian pyramids soon. After the U.S. Embassy in Cairo tweeted a link to Stewart’s comments on Monday defending fellow satirist Bassem Youssef, who was charged with insulting Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and Islam, Morsi’s office issued a rebuke. “It’s inappropriate for a diplomatic mission to engage in such negative political propaganda,” it said. The Embassy responded by closing its Twitter account, then restoring it later without the link to Stewart’s remarks. It then received a rebuke from a different source — the U. »
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NBC Confirms: Fallon To Take Over Tonight Next Spring
3 April 2013 11:38 AM, PDT
NBC finally ended all the awkward speculation and announced today (Wednesday) that Jimmy Fallon will replace Jay Leno as host of the Tonight show in the spring. According to recent rumors, NBC executives had wanted to move Fallon to the 11:30 time slot in February, during the network’s coverage of the Winter Olympics, and move Seth Meyers into Fallon’s Late Night slot. The network said only that it was “making plans” to fell Fallon’s slot. The network included this statement from Leno in its announcement: “Congratulations Jimmy,” said Leno. “I hope you’re as lucky as me »
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Analyst: Cable Operators Likely To Welcome Aereo
3 April 2013 11:37 AM, PDT
Cable companies could find that they have a mighty ally, Barry Diller’s Aereo, in their battle with broadcasters over retransmission fees — at least in the short run, Btig analyst Richard Greenfield observed in a note to clients on Tuesday. In the past, he observed, when a cable company went to war with a broadcaster over such fees, they risked losing subscribers to rivals — particularly home satellite providers such as DirecTV and Dish — if they continued to operate without the broadcaster’s signals. They could, of course, urge customers to install antennas to pick up the programs over the air »
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Unusual Week In The Ratings
3 April 2013 11:36 AM, PDT
It was a week that saw lowly NBC rise up to take the top two positions among the 18-49 age group on the Nielsen ratings list, while CBS’s NCIS, which went on the air nearly ten years ago, topped the list among total viewers (18.62 million). It was also a week that saw American Idol drop to No. 7 for its performance edition on Wednesday and No. 9 for its results telecast on Thursday. The two editions of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars also made it onto the Nielsen top ten at No. 3 and No. 5. Ratings for the nightly newscasts remained relatively low, »
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State Department Decries Arrest Of Egyptian Satirist
3 April 2013 11:35 AM, PDT
The U.S. State Department has voiced its concern about the arrest of popular Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef on charges of insulting Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim religion on his television show, which has an estimated audience of 30 million throughout the Middle East. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland expressed the U.S. government’s view that Youssef’s arrest represented “a disturbing trend” by the Egyptian government to crack down on freedom of expression. Her remarks immediately drew fire from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, saying that they “constitute a hasty, blatant interference in Egypt’s internal affairs” and »
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Diller’S Aereo Beats Networks Again
2 April 2013 11:03 AM, PDT
Barry Diller’s Aereo service, which allows its users to view television broadcasts on personal computers and mobile devices via the Internet, has won another victory over the broadcasters — and a big one at that. On Monday, a federal appeals court upheld a lower-court order that Aereo does not violate U.S. copyright law. And while Diller called the ruling a “victory for consumers,” CBS, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said that in the end, “we are confident that the rights of content owners will be recognized and that we will prevail.” However, Btig analyst Richard Greenfield commented »
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Sunday’S Cable Shows Trounced Broadcast Entertainment Shows
2 April 2013 11:02 AM, PDT
On Easter Sunday, 11.7 million viewers returned to The Bible. The final episode of the Mark Burnett-produced miniseries for the History Channel also drew solid numbers among younger viewers — 3.8 million. At rival AMC The Walking Dead ended its third season with 12.4 million viewers, 8.1 million of whom were in the 18-49 age group, making it the highest-rated entertainment program among the key demo of any program broadcast this year, broadcast or cable. Meanwhile, at the broadcast networks, March Madness continued to prevail. CBS’s overtime coverage of the Ncaa Championship game between Duke and Louisville drew 15.65 million viewers at 7:00 p. »
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Leno & Fallon Team Up On NBC Execs
2 April 2013 11:01 AM, PDT
Jay Leno had an announcement to make Monday night: “Before we get started, let me say that NBC and I have reached a peaceful, amicable agreement that will be beneficial to both sides.” But before that statement could sink in, he interjected: “April Fools! It will never happen!” Later, on NBC’s Late Night, Leno participated in a sketch with host Jimmy Fallon, in which Fallon, in a mock telephone conversation with Leno, asks how he’s doing. “I’ll live,” Leno replies. “I’ve been through this before. I’ll admit I’m a little sick of all this. »
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Game Of Thrones Piracy? HBO Exec Says, Who Cares?
2 April 2013 11:00 AM, PDT
One day after Britain’s Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact) spoke out against the extensive pirating of HBO’s Game of Thrones – it reportedly was the most illegally downloaded TV series of 2012 — the head of HBO programming played down the significance of the bootlegging. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Michael Lombardo took note of the fact that the second season of Thrones set a record for DVD sales. “I probably shouldn’t be saying this,” he remarked, “but it [the piracy] is a compliment of sorts.” After all, he noted, it hasn’t affected demand. “It certainly didn’t negatively impact the DVD Sales. »
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“Egypt’S Jon Stewart” Is Arrested
2 April 2013 10:59 AM, PDT
Appearing to raise questions about whether one authoritarian leader in Egypt had been replaced by another, TV satirist Bassem Youssef has been charged with insulting President Mohamed Morsi, denigrating Islam and disturbing the public peace. He posted the equivalent of $2,200 bail and was released. While he waited to be questioned, Youssef posted a series of humorous tweets, including, “The officers and the lawyers of the public prosecutors office want to take pictures with me. Maybe this is why they ordered my arrest?” Later: “They asked me the color of my eyes. Really.” Britain’s Guardian newspaper observed today (Tuesday) that Youssef’s show, »
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Documentaries: A Very Big Deal In China
2 April 2013 10:44 AM, PDT
Chinese documentaries earned the equivalent of $242 million last year, up from $64 million in 2009, according to a study by Beijing Normal University reported by the state-run Xinhua news agency on Monday. The report, which apparently referred to documentaries produced both for theatrical and television viewing, said that the rising popularity of the films has “boosted interest in social investment for the industry.” The Xinhua report did not describe the nature of such investment, but in capitalist economies social investment funds generally support the incubation of non-profit, culturally beneficial enterprises. A documentary TV series on the history of Chinese cuisine titled A »
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Saturday Night Livened Up By Basketball
1 April 2013 12:50 AM, PDT
For years, Saturday night has been written off as a no-win night by TV network executives, who now mostly program the evening with failed TV series, inexpensive news magazines, and reruns. They appear to regard the fact that sports programming on Saturday often draws big numbers as an anomaly. And NBC hardly seems to take notice of the fact that its long-running Saturday Night Live often produces bigger ratings than anything it airs in primetime any day of the week. But, according to Nielsen Research, CBS’s March Madness telecast last Saturday drew 10.51 million viewers, and its ratings among the »
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Jobs Flowing Back To Showbiz
1 April 2013 12:50 AM, PDT
While the unemployment rate in Los Angeles County has barely fluctuated in recent months, the motion picture and sound recording sector added 15,700 jobs in February, (although broadcasting jobs were down by about 100). The figures brought total employment by the industry to 122,700, up 6.5 percent over the same period a year ago, according to the county’s Employment Development Department (Edd). The related sectors of leisure and hospitality, Internet, and advertising also recorded significant employment gains. Freelance positions were not included in the Edd’s study, but they account for a noteworthy portion of entertainment industry employment, analysts observed. »
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Game Of Thrones A Game For Pirates
1 April 2013 12:49 AM, PDT
The HBO series Game of Thrones has become one of the most pirated TV shows ever, with one episode downloaded more than four million times, Britain’s Independent on Sunday reported, noting that by the time it hits British screens today (Monday), “there is a good chance that the keenest fans will have already seen the first episode.” Referring to the fact that HBO spent $60 million filming the series in Northern Ireland and Malta, the British anti-piracy group Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact) observed that the extensive illegal downloading harms the communities where the series was filmed. But Laurence Kaye, »
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