First, some general TV/Movie news:
Samantha Bee and Jason Jones, from this show called “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” (what the hell is that show anyway?), are signed to co-create and write a CBS sitcom (yes, you read that right) about the cooking world, Jones being a celeb chef and Bee one of the two women running his cooking empire (So like Bree’s Andrew?).
Also, Jonathan Prince (creator of A&E’s The Cleaner) has inked a first-look 2-year contract with CBS Paramount TV where a first series is already planned, centered around “bright and self-confident 22-year-old college grads who enroll in a medical school with an unusual program that forgoes years of book study to throw the youngsters into the trenches at a teaching hospital where they’re faced with life-and-death situations”.
I may jump out on a limb here, but isn’t that like Grey’s Anatomy without the “steamy” romance?
And what the hell is this news about Don Cheadle replacing Terrence Howard in Iron Man 2?
Now down to business.
I have been known to talk on occasion about ratings and how they might relate to, you know, the survival of a show.
THR put up today a couple of article around ratings, cable and DVRs.
The first is this one, a basic comparison between cable and broadcast ratings.
As the article says:
The cable networks are making their biggest push yet into fall with original scripted programming, but whether they can hold their own against the broadcasters remains to be seen.
I tend to agree with what Kimberly Nordyke notes.
That cable networks can win over the Summer is now obvious. After all, the Big Five are just starting to realize that original content works, even during hiatus, and they are now trying to put that content on air, during “hiatus season” for instance. As I pointed out in an earlier post, the idea of round-year original TV content is happening, whether the major networks want it to happen, or not.
Now, the main question is whether or not cable can keep its momentum going during fall and perhaps even winter. They could even take the sweeps in the (very) long run…But probably not.
Still, although the fact that the Big Five’s ratings are declining is undeniable (due to various circumstances -read “technology and cable”-), I’m not sure of a viable scenario where cable would outperform either CBS, NBC, FOX or ABC (they wouldn’t have a problem with The CW) when fall season is in its full swing.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see…On our DVRs.
Speaking of DVRs, the other THR article I was talking about is this one (technically a blog post). It’s all about DVRs boosting premiere ratings…although not by much it seems.
TV is being revolutionized.
In other, totally unrelated, news, I think I found the coolest website of the week.
