Proudly un-hip, ‘NCIS’ still tops ratings

“NCIS” has to have one of the clunkiest and least descriptive titles on TV. Really, what’s an NCIS? At least with “How I Met Your Mother” you can do the cool HIMYM.

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5Top: Ways ‘Idol’ pimps out its favorites

Ryan Seacrest may love to say that America is in control of “American Idol,” and viewers’ votes are what ultimately decide, but the finalists’ fates can be influenced by the gods: the show’s producers. One of the many ways they not-so-subtly promote particular contestants is by choosing the order in which the finalists perform every night. Fans have affectionately or not-so-affectionately nicknamed the final performance the “pimp slot,” because that’s where the show puts contestants it wants to promote and play up. The reasoning is simple: Viewers definitely remember the last performance, and not just because more viewers tune in during the second half-hour. Voting opens nearly immediately after that person sings, and of course, that person and their phone number also appear last in the recap that closes out each performance show.

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TODAY anchors taking family vacation together

Like Willie Nelson, the TODAY hosts are going “on the road again.”

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‘Idol’s’ run of changes make disjointed season

Is there something wrong with "American Idol"?

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TODAY is packing up and hitting the road

For one week this May, America's first TV family will be spending more than just their mornings together. Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira, Al Roker and Ann Curry will pack their bags and head to some of America's most beautiful destinations. “TODAY Takes a Vacation,” a five-day series, begins Monday, May 4.

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2008 was a tough year for TV

January 2008 saw television stumble out of the gate in the midst of a devastating writers' strike and finish with the jaw-dropping announcement that a Big Three network would be stripping a talk show into the 10 p.m. weekday prime time slot.

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Reality TV presents plenty of moral dilemmas

Drunk girls break a window to get into a locked house. A man lies about his grandmother's death to earn sympathy in a game. A contestant says she wants to stab another contestant in the face. A woman drives drunk as cameras keep rolling — and viewers keep watching.

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Report: broadcasters having bad year

Broadcast TV's fall season is going so poorly that four out of five returning programs have a smaller audience than they had in 2007.

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‘Idol’ got its groove back in season seven

"American Idol" is still the No. 1 show on television, but season seven brought out more doubters than the program has seen in a long time. The ratings were down. Young viewers started turning away. Whispers started to suggest that big changes might be in store for next year to recapture some of its lost magic.

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Strike not to blame for drop in TV viewership

As the final weeks of the 2007/2008 television season unfold, one theme keeps reappearing in news reports: We’re watching less TV.

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HBO shouldn’t change just to find success

Let's consider HBO our patient in this "In Treatment" session of network therapy.

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When Do We Get Our Post-Strike TV Shows?

No more writers on picket lines. No more network TV bosses scrambling for replacement shows.

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When Do We Get Our Post-Strike TV Shows?

No more writers on picket lines. No more network TV bosses scrambling for replacement shows. But enough about them. What about us? Two simple questions prey on every viewer's mind: When will my favorite scripted programs be back with new episodes? And, WILL my favorite shows be back?

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Writers strike left winners, losers

The Writers Guild of America strike, which lasted three months, irrevocably changed the TV landscape. There were victims, of course, and not just in Hollywood. Faithful viewers were deprived of favorite shows, and new programs lost potential followings.

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Time for writers to rethink strike

The moment of truth has arrived for those TV writers walking the picket lines for the past three months, pounding the pavement and tossing their laptops in hopes of trying to break the backs of the networks.

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Petty too safe for halftime show

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers hold an honored place in American music, but so do the Rolling Stones, the Eagles, Elvis Presley, Bill Haley and his Comets, and Chuck Berry, to name but a few. In other words, that honored place is a little dusty.

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Data Says 2.5 Million Less Watching TV

Maybe they're outside in the garden. They could be playing softball. Or perhaps they're just plain bored. In TV's worst spring in recent memory, a startling number of Americans drifted away from television the past two months: More than 2.5 million fewer people were watching ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox than at the same time last year, statistics show.

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Fox Tries to Thwart DVR Fast-Forwarding

Fox is running a 30-second television spot with just one static image in an effort to reach viewers who fast forward through ads using digital video recorders like TiVos.

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On-Demand TV Gives the Viewer the Power

Appointments, like promises and hearts, are destined to be broken — unless they're never made in the first place.

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To believe that you can reach Democrats and some of the nation's independents through the rest of the mainstream media is just plain illogical.

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Well I thought this was pretty entertaining. Fox has higher ratings but CNN has more viewers.

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When national broadcasting channel TV2 aired a news report about a fictitious immigrant gang it cost them money, viewers, trust, and for some, their job

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NETWORK PROGRAM NAME DAYS TIME COV AA% AA (000) AA (000) AA (000) #Tlc FOXN THE OREILLY FACTOR MTWTF_— 06:00A -11:00P 2.6 2546 3381 861 24 FOXN HANNITY MTWTF_— 06:00A -11:00P 2.1 2021 2649 719 23 FOXN GLENN BECK MTWTF_— 06:00A -11:00P 1.9 1854 2353 620 25 FOXN ON THE RECORD W …

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Networks report ratings slump

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Tiffany "New York" Pollard, introduced to VH1 viewers several years ago as a contestant on dating show "Flavor of Love," will begin her fourth reality series for the network in May.

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Rush, Hannity & Beck What ARE they trying to do?

The republicans great hopes this weekend. Rush and a little boy? This is the best they could come up with? All we hear from the majority of the TV media is BLAME. One side blaming the other.

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---YouTube video on link page showing a portion of the show.--- Excerpt: Supernanny watchers surely will remember the father who slapped his young children (ages 2 to 9) around and called his teen stepdaughter a slut and a ho -- all on camera.

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Interesting article on news, demographic and the influence of different media on current events.

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On the eve of Barack Obama's inauguration more than 50 celebrities have teamed up on MySpace to record videos making a "pledge of service" to the next president of the United States.

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A TV station has been fined £1,000 after the presenter on a live phone in quiz show threw a fit after no viewers called in.

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Excerpt: It has to be one of the stranger stories in publishing history, but it may also turn out to be one of the more successful. And it may just send more publishers scurrying to YouTube for book ideas.

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Excerpt: After much talk about experimenting with live streaming video, YouTube dipped its toe in the water on the weekend, with a much-hyped event (at least in blogosphere terms) called YouTube Live, featuring some of the "cewebrities" that have emerged on YouTube over the p …

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Excerpt: Monty Python, the iconic comedy series, has launched a YouTube channel. And although the page features a slew of clips from the show, most noteworthy is its featured video, which blames users for "ripping" the show off.

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A record audience tuned in to CBS' "60 Minutes" Sunday night to watch the first televised interview with Barack Obama and his wife Michelle since he was elected the 44th U.S. President.

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NBC has pulled the plug on freshman tentpole drama "My Own Worst Enemy" and returning sophomore series "Lipstick Jungle," sources say.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) -- MySpace and Auditude have rolled out an innovative solution to the problem of people posting pirated television show snippets on the Internet.

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YouTube has pulled from its website a video of a "Saturday Night Live" skit featuring characters portraying New York Times reporters investigating whether Todd Palin was having sex with the couple's own daughters after NBC expressed a claim of copyright, even though a wide range  …

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ITV was fined a record £5.7 million for misleading viewers over the conduct of phone-ins on its flagship programmes this week. But it is not just big companies that have to stump up cash in fine-happy Britain.

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According to Nielson Media Research, it's the third straight year of the average audience decline for the Oprah Winfrey Show. This year alone, the show has gone down seven per cent in average viewers.

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"A sunflower seed company says it has shipped nearly 6,000 bags of its salty snacks to USA Network to try to save a science fiction show. And the actor whose seed-spitting character inspired the campaign is loving every minute of it."

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With 97.5 million viewers, Super Bowl XLII was the most-watched ever.

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THE RETURN OF KUNTA KINTE: Warner Home Video bolsters re-release of 'Roots' DVD with bonus disc.

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NBC has discovered that some fans of its top prime-time shows are using NBC.com as their de facto DVR, while curious non-fans are using the site to sample shows they've never seen on TV.

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Newsreader in hot water after on-air gaffe Television bosses launched an investigation after a newsreader flashed her tummy and exchanged risque banter with a colleague, not realising she was live on air.

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