TVSquad

I wasn't the only guy wishing Michael Jackson's friends and family would have shown a little more decorum and restraint in turning the singer's funeral into a bad impersonation of The People's Choice Awards.

The BBC reported 473 complaints about its coverage of the Jackson memorial service. The calls "expressed unhappiness" at the way the BBC dedicated two of its networks to the Los Angeles ceremony.

Obviously, considering the millions of TVs trained on the Jackson farewell all around the world, a few hundred moans with British accents don't qualify as an avalanche of negativity. But, the BBC admitted that 91 of the calls were specifically about the "excessive" coverage, and many griped about the maudlin tone of the reporting.

I agree with Bob, Mad Men, a new series coming to AMC, looks quite interesting. It focuses on people working in the ad industry in the '60s, back when smoking and drinking didn't have the stigma it does now. Did you know even babies smoked in 1965? Well, they did, and they loved it.

Unfortunately, the '60s vibe of Mad Men seems to be clashing with new attitudes toward alcohol sponsorship on commercial TV. Commercial Alert has filed a complaint with the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, claiming that Jack Daniel's sponsorship of the series violates the marketing code that alcohol consumption can not be shown in association with irresponsible behavior and lewd sexual situations, even though that's essentially the whole point of consuming alcohol in the real world.

I wrote that last sentence as a joke, but still, Mad Men is clearly going for a gritty, realistic vibe, and ample consumption of Jack Daniel's probably fits right in.

Last summer, I told you about a dispute NBC Universal was having with the Writers Guild of America over the webisodes they asked the creators of The Office, Heroes, and Battlestar Galactica to write and produce prior to this season. It seems as if the WGA was a little cheesed off that NBC was asking writers to create these web-only vignettes for no extra compensation, and ordered the writers to stop working on them. NBCU filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board over the union's order.

Well, the NLRB finally ruled on the matter, and NBCU came out on the losing end. Sort of. The board dismissed the case yesterday, ruling that there was no evidence that the union coerced or pressured the show-runners of those shows to not work on the webisodes. So, while NBCU technically lost, all they wanted from this case was for the WGA to admit that they didn't pressure anyone, which is what they got, according to Broadcasting & Cable. Another dispute between the two parties, about a "side-letter" agreement regarding web content, will be decided by a private arbitrator in late spring.

Former supermodel Niki Taylor has sued E! Entertainment Television for "intentional infliction of emotional distress" with its recent Boulevard of Broken Dreams profile of the model's career and near-fatal 2001 car accident. According to Taylor and her lawyers, E! secured Taylor's involvement in the profile by telling her that the show would focus on her current professional endeavors - including a fragrance and clothing line. Boulevard, of course, did no such thing. The show's tagline is, after all, "In a place between heaven and Hollywood, dreams turn tragic and fame goes sour fast."

The complaint filed by Taylor's lawyers reads that E! "neglected their journalistic obligations to report truthfully and accurately." E! replied that they weren't aware that "journalism" had any attendant "obligations." The network's spokesperson issued a statement saying, "We're E! Entertainment Television, not E! Stewards of Responsible Media Television." Just kidding. E! has yet to go on record regarding the suit.

The American Family Association, the same group that filed complaints against an episode of Without a Trace, have now set their sights on Fox Sports' recent coverage of the Food City 500 NASCAR race.  During the broadcast, which like all of Fox Sports' live events was aired without tape delay, a member of driver Martin Truex's team called another car "a piece of s---." This isn't the first time drivers or members of a race team have let blue language fly on the air, and so far complaints haven't helped much, especially when one considers that only broadcast networks are subject to fines, not cable channels. While I understand people wanting to keep such language from television during the hours when children are watching, a complete absence of swearing seems almost unnatural. As BC Beat notes, a sport as intense and dangerous as auto racing is going to conjure its share of curse words. It seems to be the nature of the beast. 

If you own a Tivo or DVR you can record all of your favorite shows, correct? Well, not if HBO has anything to say about it. The company wants to make it illegal for DVR owners to record episodes from its on-demand service and have petitioned the FCC to look into it. Apparently HBO doesn't want free copies of these shows floating around. However, shouldn't people be allowed to record them for private use? HBO isn't just setting its site on DVR users, the company doesn't want to see these shows recorded in any fashion whatsoever.