MediaRightsCapital-related stories
Posted Jan 29th 2009 11:00AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Industry, Celebrities, Pickups and Renewals, Casting, Reality-Free

It looks like Bob Saget might be going back to the world of ABC sitcoms. His previously-abandoned-by-The-CW vehicle
Surviving Suburbia is looking to find a home on the network that brought us Saget in the 90's via
Full House and
America's Funniest Home Videos.
I don't know much about
Surviving Suburbia outside of its premise (a couple living in the suburbs get new wacky next-door neighbors). It sounds too much like those formulaic sitcoms that I loathe. Their best bet for promoting something interesting is having Saget act like the pervert he acts like in his stand-up routine (as seen in the movie
The Aristocrats). Make the show more for adults and make Saget a dislikable main character similar in execution to Archie Bunker.
Still, with a title like
Surviving Suburbia, it's more than likely that the show is going to be formulaic and bland (think
According to Jim). There's likely a reason The CW abandoned it (other than Saget) . Sadly, as a result of his television work in the 90's, "bland" is what Saget is mostly known for.
Posted Nov 20th 2008 5:26PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Industry, Ratings, Reality-Free

It looks like the great experiment has been deemed a failure. The CW is
ending its relationship with Media Rights Capital, who produced its extremely low-rated Sunday night line-up.
The idea looked great on paper: rent out Sunday night to an independent content provider and let them reap the advertising rewards. World Wrestling Entertainment uses a similar model when it broadcasts its wrestling product on any given network. Sadly, the concept could not keep up with the sagging ratings of the CW.
The contract was terminated when MRC couldn't keep up with payments to the parent network. I doubt they were making that much in terms of advertising dollars either, given that their ratings were among the lowest ever for the network. That's saying a lot.
In any case, it's another example of The CW being one step closer to that "going out of business" sale. Perhaps they should simply go back to being
the WB.
Posted Oct 10th 2008 5:28PM by Richard Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Programming, Web, Reality-Free, Webisodes
Fourteen million. That's not the number of dollars that are being lost in the stock market every second (I'm sure it's much, much more). It's actually the number of views that Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy reached during three weeks on the Interweb. Now, if he only got those numbers during the initial run of Family Guy on FOX.
To those that are totally lost because you've been staring at your 401K numbers for the last month, Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy launched on YouTube on September 10th. Sponsored by Burger King, it featured original animated content from Seth MacFarlane and his gang of miscreants. In a press release from Media Rights Capital, Cavalcade became the number one most-viewed channel on the video website a mere 48 hours after its launch. Since then, it has garnered not only the 14 million views mentioned above but 100,000 subscribers to the 'sethcomedy' channel. Making it one of the most subscribed YouTube channels of all time.
Continue reading MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy gets some big numbers
Posted Jul 19th 2008 7:36PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Industry, TCA Press Tour, Reality-Free, Gossip Girl

As I said in my post about the
90210 panel, CW entertainment president Dawn Ostroff doesn't like to give us definitive answers. For some reason, she doesn't feel she has to. Problem is, that doesn't make the critics very happy. We don't like it when someone isn't being forthright with us, and we can sense it.
In her executive session, Ostroff avoided saying anything definitive on two major topics: the lack of "urban" shows on the schedule and the mechanics of the network's deal with Media Rights Capital to produce the network's entire Sunday block of shows.
Continue reading The CW wrap-up: executive session and two new shows - TCA Report
Posted May 14th 2008 9:21AM by Brett Love
Filed under: Industry, Programming, Moonlight
Moonlight is not going to just go away quietly and join that long list of one-and-done shows. People keep saying it's over, but apparently not everyone is listening. The latest rumor, from Nikki Finke's blog, has the show landing at the CW. And how would that work, considering that the CW has already made their schedule? I'm glad you asked.
You may recall a post from a few days ago about the network throwing in the towel on Sunday nights. That has now been confirmed with their upfront announcements. Sundays have now been outsourced. Moonlight comes back into the picture as a possibility to fill one of those two hours for Media Rights Capital, the new programmers for Sunday nights. If they could get even 60 to 70 percent of the show's viewers to make the move with them, it could be the most watched show on the network. Something that sounds very plausible given the loyal following the show has developed. It's still firmly in long-shot territory, but has the makings of quite a story.