Posts with tag ge
Posted Jul 7th 2008 2:01PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: News, Industry, OpEd, Casting, Reality-Free
So, you probably heard that the NBC Universal empire will be expanding by one, once
it has added The Weather Channel to its media outlets. On MSNBC this morning, the subs on
Morning Joe were crowing about CEO
Jeff Zucker, sucking up royally, and even hyping GE stock.
It was all really uncomfortable, obvious and out of place when you are tuning in for news, politics, some pop culture and get NBCU corporate cheerleaders in full pom-pom mode.
Okay, enough ranting; there is some news to report. If the deal goes through -- and it will --
Today weatherman Al Roker may be relocating or he'll be repurposed, becoming the face of The Weather Channel.
Continue reading Al Roker, NBCU and the Weather Channel
Posted Mar 24th 2008 2:02PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, CSI, House, Law and Order, Lost, Grey's Anatomy, 30 Rock, Ugly Betty, NCIS, TV Squad Lists, Lipstick Jungle, Eli Stone
The world of primetime TV are primarily set in the real world. The real world based on the fiction they create. So,
Law and Order -- in all its incarnations -- is set in New York City, but it's not the real five boroughs. The newspapers they read are not
The New York Times, the
Post or the
Daily News. For contemporary TV fiction, reality is on the margins of the storytelling because you can't really set those characters in a real world. However, when the two worlds intersect, the results can be magic. Here's 8 big-time, primetime examples:
1) Cowboy Up TimeRemember the episode of
Lost when Ben wanted to convince Jack that he was in communication with the world outside the island? To prove that he was telling the truth, he showed Jack a video of the Boston Red Sox winning the world series in 2004. You can't get more real than that, right? And yet it was used in one of the most out of this world shows on the air. In fact, using
Lost's own terminology, the Red Sox video is a constant truth in a universe that's a complete fiction.
Continue reading Eight real world moments in reel TV
Posted May 20th 2007 11:58AM by Adam Finley
First, some background:
Harvey Pekar is best known for writing the comic book series American Splendor about life in his hometown of Cleavland, Ohio. Robert Crumb offered to illustrate Pekar's stories after the two men struck up a friendship.
Pekar became a minor celebrity (well, minor in the "mainstream" sense) and it afforded him a few appearances on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman. In one of the show's most memorable moments, Pekar had more than a few nasty things to say about General Electric, the company that owns NBC. The incident got him booted from the show for awhile, but eventually he was asked to come back.
Continue reading Harvey Pekar does Letterman - VIDEO
Posted Apr 6th 2007 6:40PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Web, Hardware
If I could pick my dream television set, and it would appear magically in my living room, maybe delivered by Jeannie or Samantha Stevens or some other TV character that could wave her hand or twitch her nose, I would take one of those cool sets from the 50s, with the insides being modern, of course. I want the look of the 50s, but I don't want to be stuck with the four or so stations they had back then. (And yes I know there are companies that sell them, but they're out of my income bracket.)
Continue reading Wired looks at the history of the TV set
Posted Nov 21st 2006 11:14AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, NBC, OpEd, Commercials, My Name Is Earl, Watercooler Talk, The Office, 30 Rock
So the first night of NBC's new "Must-See TV" lineup (except
Scrubs) turned out to be eventful for more than one reason: not only did we see a pivotal episode of
The Office, the cast of
My Name Is Earl in Claymation, and the first Thursday
30 Rock, we saw more self-referrential product placements in one night than at any time I could remember.
The first one was when we saw
The Office's Kevin going nuts over the
Staples MailMate shredder. "This shreds eveything," he says with a sense of childlike wonder. "It shreds CDs. It shreds credit cards..." The look on his face after he realized he shredded his own credit card is priceless, as was the salad he made with the shredder right before the credits. Oh, and by the way, Staples had an ad for the MailMate during the "supersized" episode.
Continue reading Thursday was product placement night on NBC
Posted Feb 8th 2006 9:44AM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Cable, Programming, Web
Bravo is teaming up with PlanetOut, the largest gay media
company in the nation, to create a broadband channel at
OutZonetv.com. The website
will feature various reality and documentary series targeted for a gay and lesbian audience. The president of Bravo
says it's a far less expensive risk to launch original programming on the web than it is to create a brand new cable
channel.
Outzone is the third broadband broadcasting project for Bravo. Last year, the company announced it
was shutting down Trio on the air and putting it exclusively
on the web. It also
created a spin-off web channel,
BrilliantbutCancelled.com, which
currently offers episodes of only one show,
EZ Streets, starring Joe Pantoliano.
Giveaways reminder: Office, Eli Stone, Supernatural, South Park
Giveaway Thursday: Tickets to the New York Television Festival ... all of it!
I miss the media-friendly John McCain - VIDEOS
