Hi folks, I’m in the midst of a residential move and my participation on the site this week will be light at best.  So there will be no early ratings reports this week. Pretty much everything else, Mr. Gorman has a handle on.  If the cable internet gods at Comcast are willing, I should be back up and running normally (or at least as normal as things get for me) by next Monday, October 13.

Please excuse the inconvenience, I’m screwing around with some design changes and a long holiday weekend seemed the best time to see what happened if I made the changes live. So far, not so good, but I’m confident by Monday it will be ironed out. We may go back and forth between the new and the old theme over the weekend and apologize for any inconvenience. Our hope is to make the site better and easier to use. Once the dust settles, we think it will be.

Thanks for your patience

I’m just back from Italy where I spent the entire 2008 Olympics. Our hotel system had TV networks from all over, but I primarily watched live events on British (BBC), German (EuroSport, others) and Italian (RAI) networks and commentary/studio broadcasts exclusively on the BBC because my Italian and German isn’t nearly good enough for extended commentary to be interesting.  Here are a few random thoughts on watching Olympics telecasts for the first time outside the US:

• The BBC had taped events in the evening each day, but also broadcast those same events live during the day unlike, as I have read, NBC holding certain events for tape delay only. The German and Italian networks seemed to be much more substantially live, but my impressions may be colored by the fact that I rarely stayed on those networks if they weren’t on a live event.
• Like NBCU’s networks, the BBC had multiple channels broadcasting live events throughout the day. Our hotel’s system didn’t have the ability to access those broadcasts though so I didn’t watch them.
• US networks are often criticized for being “homers” and focusing just on US athletes and the events they do well in. Other countries are just as bad. The only “non-local” story that got any significant coverage on the networks was Michael Phelps, and it was pretty brief (compared to NBC, which I understand was a Phelps-o-rama). Watching the BBC, you’d think that the Olympics was primarily women’s swimming, rowing, yachting, cycling with a little equestrian and athletics thrown in. The German and Italian networks were equally focused on their teams best events.
• As expected, the production budgets of the other networks were a fraction of NBC’s. The BBC looked pretty good, but I’m sure the NBCU staff outnumbered them 10:1. The German and Italian broadcast teams seemed much smaller, but again I didn’t watch much non-live action.
• Nothing to do with television, but every single medal count list I saw on air or in print via the media of non-US countries while traveling had the countries ordered by the number of gold medals and not total medals. Subtle anti-US bias? You be the judge. Update edit: As commenters pointed out, and I have added in the comments, no bias seems evident based on past practices.

These two polls have been running for about a week on the site, but I hadn’t called attention to them yet. I’m looking to get a sense from our readers what they think the biggest new show hit and flop will be this fall season. What’s a hit or a flop? I’d say early obvious renewal or cancellation, but ultimately the definition is up to you.

Being a numbers guy, I chose entirely based on the show’s placement in their respective networks day / time slots, I have no idea if the shows will be any good.

Biggest Hit: Fringe. It follows House, and its significant competition in the time slot is Dancing with The Stars which I think goes after an entirely different viewer.

Biggest Flop: Do Not Disturb. It follows ‘Til Death, which probably should have been cancelled last season on numbers alone. It also has credible competition on ABC, CBS and NBC in its timeslot.

You can check out the new fall broadcast schedules here.

What are your picks? And why?

Read the full story

The competition was fierce for our Law & Order: Criminal Intent contest, but with a guess of 4.625 million Live+SD viewers [closest to the actual result of 4.529 million], reader StefanL of www.MajorCase-CI.com is the winner!

StefanL will receive a Law & Order: Criminal Intent prize pack of DVD Sets for Law &Order:CI Season 1, 2 and 3 plus a Law & Order: CI t-shirt.

Now, for some more Law & Order:CI fun (but no prizes!), who’s your favorite L&O:CI detective team?

 Loading ...

I don’t often post items like this, but my Battlestar Galactica fandom compels me.

$7,900 will now buy you your very own Cylon Centurion (via TVGuide.com). Original (Lorne Greene) or Modern (Edward James Olmos) versions available.

“Fans of Battlestar Galactica can now purchase their very own 7-foot-tall, museum-quality Cylon Centurion complete with stereo sound and a menacing red LED-scanning eye. “This is not a mass-produced item from China; they’re each handmade, signed and numbered by me in my L.A. studio,” says craftsman Fred Barton”

No word on whether it will include the ability to speak the phrase I most miss from the Original, “By Your Command“. Yes, I know #6 has spoken it twice in the Modern series, but it’s just not the same.

Now, I can just see the wheels turning in Robert’s head, “Hmm, $7,900 for a Centurion, no way, but for a #6….”

To get straight to the point: I really enjoyed this show. Now here’s the long version…

I got my first ever advance review copy DVD and while I don’t fancy myself to be the next Tom Shales or the next Aaron Barnhart when it comes to assessing good television, I know what I like and what I don’t like. Here on the Internet that seems to be the only qualification necessary! It was nice to get an advance review copy of USA’s In Plain Sight (rough cuts of the pilot, plus two episodes), but I won’t feel like I’ve made it until I get to watch the LOST finale before everyone else. Like the rest of you, I have to wait until next Thursday. Kinda sucks.

Aaron Barnhart may be my favorite television critic EVER He told me, “You must watch HBO’s The Wire.” I took his advice and watched it, ultimately all five seasons of it. If not my favorite show ever, it’s right up there. The Wire is a good lead-in for me as far as USA’s In Plain Sight goes, because The Wire and In Plain Sight have a couple of things in common, good characters and the use of humor to take the edge off of what can be the hard, cold realities of real life.

The Wire in my estimation portrayed with a fair bit of accuracy what can happen in inner city po-lice departments. I am definitely not getting the vibe that In Plain Sight is an accurate depiction of how real life US Marshals who work the Witness Protection Program act, but I don’t care. I enjoyed the heck out of the pilot and the first episode. I have one episode left, but I’m saving it up since I’m already two episodes ahead (note the pilot will run an hour and sixteen minutes on TV).

Read the full story

“DearMe” a regular TVbytheNumbers visitor and aspiring network executive asks if you could  create a network made up of any shows you wanted, not based on making money but based on what you love to watch, what would your schedule be?  It can include any show on broadcast or cable, and you can bring back cancelled shows from the dead.

I’m probably going to bring back Dallas, All in the Family and Sanford and Son, but…I’m old.  I’ll post my shows in the comments sooner or later.  Feel free to add your own.