2010-related stories
Posted Nov 20th 2009 1:04PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Sports, OpEd, Celebrities, Documentary
Lately, Detroit Tiger all-star outfielder Curtis Granderson has been in the news because he might be joining the New York Yankees. However, if
Major League Baseball free agency doesn't make him a household name, television might. Granderson has an idea for a reality series that's being shopped around now and it's not like anything else other athletes have pitched.
Granderson's series is called Stadium Secrets and it will be like History Channel's
Cities of the Underworld. In fact, it might be suited to the History Channel. Granderson would host the show and lead viewers into the inner recesses and hidden passages of famous stadia around the world -- although it'll probably start with American locations.
Continue reading Granderson has Stadium Secrets to share
Posted Nov 19th 2009 2:30PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Food/Home/DIY, OpEd, Top Chef
Okay, take the idea of
Shark Tank (or
Dragon's Den if you're a BBC America fan), mix it with the
Top Chef folks, offer a great grand prize and hope for the best. That's the recipe behind
NBC's new food competition show, United Plates of America. The network is turning to the Magical Elves from
Top Chef -- no, seriously, that's the production company's name -- to succeed in the food field where NBC has flopped in the past. Remember
The Chopping Block? Remember Rocco DiSpirito's
The Restaurant? NBC has more luck with the dieters on
The Biggest Loser.
This go-round is not about a single restaurant. It's about a chain of restaurants. To me, that's a questionable goal. Most successful chains start off with one great restaurant and then take off. This concept is go big or go home. Maybe it's more complicated, but it doesn't sound that way.
Continue reading NBC cooks up a new food reality show with a big prize
Posted Nov 17th 2009 8:09AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Law and Order, Celebrities, Casting, Reality-Free
There's another Bravo to NBC crossover afoot. First,
The Real Housewives of New Jersey popped over to play themselves on
Mercy. Now it turns out that
Kathy Griffin is on her way to Law and Order: SVU. And, get this, she's not playing herself. The queen of the D-list will be acting.
Kathy has been tapped to play a lesbian activist in the February 10 episode. As anyone who's watched Kathy on her Emmy-award winning reality show,
My Life on the D-List, Kathy is a shameless over-achiever and loves to work. She's ambitious and determined to get off the D-list. As she might say, she would go to the opening of a refrigerator if it would help her career.
Continue reading Kathy Griffin lands guest spot on Law and Order SVU
Posted Nov 13th 2009 9:24PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, American Idol, Celebrities, Judges
If
Kara DioGuardi has her way, she and Ellen DeGeneres will be hitting it off like franks and beans, peanut butter and jelly, frick and frack... two peas in a pod. At at an industry conference in New York, Kara was
musing about the upcoming season of American Idol in which DioGuardi and DeGeneres will be sharing the judges' table together -- with Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell, of course.
"I'm hoping the chemistry with Ellen will be great -- and a great start to the season," said Kara.
With that in mind, Kara's going to sleep on the couch at Ellen's house until they're bosom buddies. ...Kidding! But Kara will try to spend some time with Ellen during December when they both have some time off from their busy schedules.
Continue reading American Idol's Kara DioGuardi on Paula and Ellen
Posted Nov 13th 2009 9:02AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Daytime, Casting, Emmys, Reality-Free
There's reason to be hopeful about
All My Children's move to Hollywood. Oh, yes, Thorsten Kaye has decided not to go -- bye, bye Zach -- but there's a list of stars lining up for the anniversary that's pretty spectacular.
In honor of
All My Children's 40th Anniversary, Julia Barr is coming back as Brooke English. Also
slated to appear are a bunch of other former AMC stars, including Eva LaRue, Taylor Miller, Laurence Lau, Eden Riegel, Leven Rambin and the previously announced Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos.
Julia's return is a big get because she was such big part of the soap for so long. The two-time Emmy winner was on
AMC from 1976 to her exit in 2006. This anniversary show will be a chance for fans to hear what Brooke -- Erica's rival for all those years -- has been up to.
Next in line is Eva LaRue. She's become a prime time star with
CSI: Miami. She did two stints with
AMC as Dr. Maria Santos Grey.
Continue reading For All My Children's 40th anniversary, Julia Barr and more will be back
Posted Oct 26th 2009 10:02AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Food/Home/DIY, OpEd, Pickups and Renewals, Top Chef
If you're a fan of
Top Chef, there's nothing tougher for the contestants than desserts. Just this past week during 'restaurant wars,' did you notice that one team decided to have no desserts on their menu at all. They just didn't want to risk blowing it.
Well, Bravo noticed, not just last week but all through the
Top Chef series.
Bravo's creating a Top Chef spinoff called Just Desserts in which chefs will have no choice, they'll have to deal with sugar, icing, cakes and struedels.
Top Chef: Just Desserts is the second
Top Chef spinoff, after
Top Chef Masters. I'm anticipating
Top Chef: Maitre D's down the road, aren't you?
Continue reading Bravo orders from the Dessert menu
Posted Oct 21st 2009 11:29AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Celebrities, Awards, Reality-Free, So You Think You Can Dance
Maybe they'll change the name of this year's
Academy Awards to
So You Think You Can Win An Oscar? Or maybe it'll be
Oscar, You Should Be Dancing. What else can we expect now that
Adam Shankman has been assigned to produce the Oscar broadcast... with Bill Mechanic. The Bill Mechanic part is almost like fine print. (Or that cute kid Brick on
The Middle who whispers under his breathe in a funny, creepy way. "Mechanic...")
The story here is
Adam Shankman. He's a director/choreographer and dancer. He's a judge on the current season of
So You Think You Can Dance. His biggest credit is
Hairspray, one of the few movie musicals that has made it to the big screen and was a bit hit in the last decade. Shankman should bring movement, energy and -- perhaps -- dance to the
Academy Awards?
Continue reading Adam Shankman, the dancing Oscar producer
Posted Oct 9th 2009 12:00PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Food/Home/DIY, Industry, OpEd, Reality-Free
When you're a cable network and you're only reaching 55 million households and want to reach twice that amount, what do you do? If you're Scripps Networks, you rebrand the channel and give it a new name. That's why
Fine Living will become the Cooking Channel in 2010.
The way I see this, since Scripps owns the Food Network, the Cooking Channel will be sort of a Food Network annex. Food Network 2.0. Food Network, Two. In actuality, a lot of the programming on Fine Living now is connected to Food Network. Old
Iron Chef episodes, Emeril LaGasse and Mario Batali and Wolfgang Puck ... all cooking shows that were once on Food Network.
Now that it's going to drop the Fine Living angle and concentrate on cooking, all the overflow from Food Network will have somewhere to go.
Continue reading Fine Living will become the Cooking Channel
Posted Jul 24th 2009 6:00PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Sports, Programming, OpEd, Reality-Free
Unless you're a National Football League fan like me, the idea of watching hours and hours of college players being selected one by one to potentially play for a team, is as boring as watching someone in fishing for bass. Well, it turns out there's an audience for both! No seriously, when ESPN began covering the NFL Draft in 1980, the network could have never anticipated that it would grow into a ratings draw.
Now, the draft has been supersized.
In 2010, the NFL Draft will be three days long and in mostly in primetime. The 75th annual National Football League Draft will commence on Thursday, April 22 at 7:30 - 11 p.m.. That'll just cover round one. Rounds two and three continue on Friday, April 23 at 6:30 - 11 p.m., with the final four rounds dominating daytime on Saturday, April 24, from 9 a.m. to whenever it's over.
Continue reading The NFL draft expands into primetime
Posted Sep 3rd 2008 2:02PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Late Night, Celebrities, Talk Show, Reality-Free
While
NBC is carefully plotting Jay Leno's exit from
The Tonight Show,
David Letterman is talking about staying on the CBS Late Show beyond 2010. And since the subject of Leno came up, Dave thinks the guys at NBC are nuts to treat Jay the way they are, especially since he's done such a great job in the 11:30 slot.
Letterman even said he wants Jay on his show the day after his Tonight Show tenure ends.
Letterman, who was once the heir apparent to Johnny Carson's desk but was passed over in favor of Leno, has thrived on CBS even though he was crushed to lose
The Tonight Show. The supposed feud between Letterman and Leno, and their competition for
The Tonight Show, was depicted in the HBO film (and Bill Carter book)
The Late Shift. (If you've never seen it, buy or rent it; it's one of the best films ever about how TV works behind the scenes.)
Continue reading Letterman speaks up for Leno
Posted Sep 4th 2007 12:31PM by Richard Keller
Filed under: Programming, Doctor Who, Celebrities
Once again the fate of David Tennant's role as the Doctor on Doctor Who is in question. Earlier this year there were rumors that Tennant would not resume his role for the fourth series of the popular science fiction program. However, those rumors were quickly refuted.
Now comes word directly from the BBC that the show will not be returning for a fifth series until 2010 (the fourth series premieres in 2008). It was postponed to allow Tennant to play Hamlet with the Royal Shakespeare Company late next year. A spokesperson for the show said it was too early to comment on whether or not Tennant would return for a fifth series.
Continue reading The Doctor (Who, that is) takes a little break
Posted Dec 4th 2006 12:31PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, CBS, Late Night, TV Royalty, OpEd, Talk Show, Pickups and Renewals
Almost a year ago, David Letterman
let slip on the
Late Show that he was only thinking of staying only two or three more years. Of course, his reps
denied that he meant anything by that, nipping that speculation in the bud right away.
It looks like they were right.
Reuters
is reporting that CBS has extended Letterman's contract until the fall of 2010. No terms were revealed. By the contract ends, Letterman will be (gulp) 63 years old, so it's no automatic that he'll extend his contract in '10. But you've got to wonder if by then CBS will be looking to go a little younger, as NBC did when they pushed out Letterman's mentor, Johnny Carson, who was 67 when he ended his run on
The Tonight Show in 1992. The ironic thing is, by the time the contract expires, he will no longer be competing against Jay Leno, but against the man who took his place on
Late Night, Conan O'Brien.
Continue reading Letterman gets contract extended to 2010
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