Late Night Talk Shows Are In Big Trouble

Are the lights going out for TV's Late Night talk shows?
What Lights you may ask.
Readers have been telling me for years they watch their late talk shows while firmly ensconsed in bed with only a night light on.
But ratings are steadily dripping away and the days of power may be over for the Late Night comics who front these shows.
At NBC Jay Leno is averaging four million viewers a night in the U.S., down almost a million from what Conan O'Brien was getting.
And remember Conan got bounced from NBC because of his low numbers.
Over at CBS Letterman's numbers are off seven per cent from 2009 to 3.3 million.
Jimmy Fallon at ABC at midnight has dipped from two million to a current average of 1.64 million while CBS's Craig Ferguson a half hour later is in the same range.
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are holding their own but not building on their base.
now I have a friend down my street who now watches soaps late at night. She tapes her favorite two afternoon soaps and after CTV News settles down tp two hours of organ music and tears.
Another acquaintance just bough the entire first season of West wing on sale in a DVD package and is going through the 22 episodes which leaves her no time for comedy.
In truth the plethora of options is dimming the once mighty popularity of the talk shows.
There'll never be another era like the one dominated by Johnny Carson whose opening monologue was much discussed the next day around office water coolers.
I'm more inclined to be dipping into a new movie just out on DVD (I'm watching Remember Me) right now or catch a classic on TCM.
Late night is feeling the changes of technology just as much as the afternoon soap operas which are fast dwindling away.
Also in trouble are the regularly scheduled network newscasts --24/7 news networks are slowly eating away at a once firm audience base.

Global TV Has A New Anchor

"I sort of feel I'm on a blind date."
That's what Globa TV's Kevin Newman said on air as he introduced his successor Dawna Friesen. She revs up as the new anchor on Global (and also as executive editor) in September.
"We've had similar paths," Newman interjected meaning he had to go away from Canada to establish his name.
As had Friesen who has spent the past decade mainly in Europe covering stories for NBC news.
Her selection just days after CTV announced Lisa Laflamme would be succeeding CTV's Lloyd Robertson next year means there'll now be two female national anchors with only CBC's Peter Mansbridge left on the former all male anchoring front.
Returning to Canada after years away doesn't always work.
J.D. Roberts left Citytvfor U.S. newscasts and then returned as staid John Roberts as co-anchor of CTV's Canada AM. He never really found his footing and finally returned to the U.S. (he's now with CNN).
And in the 1980s CBC imported Hilary Brown as its Toronto anchor and she seemed unsure of herself after a decade of solid international reporting--and she, too, left.
But announcing Dawna Friesen as Global's first national anchor would not be correct. And remember Anne Mroczowski currently co-hosts Global Toronto's late night feed.
Sorry, Donna, but Jan Tennant beat you to it when she co-anchored Global's national news in the 1980s alongside Peter Trueman. Before that she was the first woman to read CBC's National news in 1974.
The feminization of national newscasts started on American TV when Katie Couric replaced Dan Rather on and Diane Sawyer took over for Charlie Gibson on ABC.
Canadian TV is only playing catch up.

A Fond Farewell For Lloyd Robertson

In the end Lloyd Robertson did it his way, the way of a gentleman.
Quietly and without ostentation he announced at the end of Thursday night's CTV telecast that he was stepping down as anchor after an unprecedented reign of 35 years at CTV.
And I remember the day it all started.
I was at the CBC fall TV launch in 1976 when CBC news chief Knowlton Nash announced to startled critics that :"I've lost my Mr. Clean!"
I'd been hearing the buzz that Robertson was about to defect to CTV and then it was true.
Most of us called cabs and deserted the CBC fete in a flash as publicity chief Cec Smith stood at the curb shouting "Stop! We're paying for all this."
Remember that Robertson started at CBC in 1954. But he was increasingly vexed by union regulations that forbade him touching his copy --he was no more than an announcer at CBC because of these restrictions.
But up at CTV's Charles St. that momentous day headquarters pandemonium reigned supreme.
CTV President Murray Chercover was chortling "We're now Number One in news!"
But just as Lloyd was about to begin his press conference in rushed CTV's Harvey Kirck --Kirk had been on a tour of western affiliates when told the news the night before.
He boarded the first plane to Toronto and told me he was anxious sharing the CTV platform with Robertson.
Fireworks were predicted. Instead they got along very well for the next 10 years until Kirck's retirement.
Now --35 years later --people will be asking of Robertson did he jump or was he pushed?
CTV's 11 p.m. news ratings remain high so Robertson --who after all is now 76 --could have picked any date to retire.
But one thing about Robertson --he's outlasted all challengers.
For a time media watchers had predicted Keith Morison would be the successor. But trouble ensued when Morison began openly speculating. Very soon he was out at CTV.
Another challenger was Pam Wallin but she eventually defected the other way --to CBC. These days she's a Tory senator.
So who was the choice?
Lisa LaFlamme, 45, is the surprise choice.
True, she has served a dutiful apprentice going right back to Kitchener's CKCO-TV.
But her stay on Canada AM wasn't very successful. Ratings were slumping and she seemed to take pot shots every day at Rod Black.
My choice would have been Tom Clark but maybe he has just been around CTV too long.
However both ABC and CBS chose women when their geezer anchors left. The trouble is both ABC's Diane Sawyer and CBS's Katie Couric now preside over newscasts considerably diminished in the ratings.
Robertson told viewers last night he'll stay on with his successor into 2011. He'll remain a network fixture as host of W5 and other news specials.
At CTV he's enjoyed great fame and fortune.
It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
In one of my profiles of Lloyd I openly asked how he and Harvey (who towered over him) seemed to be the same size when sharing that CTV desk.
Lloyd was so tickled by it he commissioned a CTV artist to draw a caricature of bulking Harvey sitting beside Lloyd on a pile of phonebooks.
Both guys autographed it and send it to me.
Today that caricature is a prized possession.
*******
And a side glance at Murray Chercover who died Saturday of pneumonia at 80. Chercover kept CTV going through some pretty rough times and with a skeleton staff. In truth CTV was a conglomerate of private stations and the leader was always CFTO's Baton Broadcasting.
But Chercover also had a sense of humor. When I once asked him why CTV never had a fall TV launch he sputtered "My big Canadian show is Littlest Hobo. You want me to have a press conference for a dog?"

The Emmy Nominations Are Out

Big news about the Emmy nominations is the NBC press statements congratulating Conan O'Brien on snagging a nomination over Jay Leno.
Hey, guys, you dumped the redhead in January and paid him off to the tune of $45 million and in the fall he's joining the opposition with a new talk show on TBS.
And Jay Leno who returned to his Tonight gig after a disastrous period nightly at 10 got nothing. Also, Leno's ratings are now lower than Conan's ever were.
Bigger news was Glee's rapid ascent to must-see status with 19 nominations.
Modern Family took 14 nominations but series star Ed O'Neill was overlooked (I'm hearing he placed his name in the supporting and not the lead actor category).
Also nominated heavily was CBS's new drama series The Good Wife.
And a nice farewell present wen to to Lost with seven nominations.
But other departing series including Law & Order and 24 got shut out which is a real shock. Or maybe these shows stayed around too long.
And ABC's ratings hot duo of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice both got shut out.
One big surprise? The nominations of Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton from Friday Night Lights in the best actor category--they'd been snubbed for their first three seasons. the others? Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Hugh Laurie (House), Jon Hamm (Mad Men), Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad).
Best series actress nominations include Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer), Glenn Close (Damages), Mariska Hargitay (Law & Order), January Jones (Mad Men), Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife).
But remember this: the Emmys don't mean diddley squat.
Stars (like Barbara Stanwyck) have won after their series got cancelled because of anemic ratings. An Emy doesn't necessarily increase a winner's pay packet either.

Should Steve Carell Quit The Office?

It must be a quiet week --the entertainment blogs are filled with stories about Steve Carell deciding to leave The Office.
NBC sources are saying there still might be a way to save the series and install a new number one personality. The strangest story so far has Ricky Gervais jumping in as a wholly new character.
remember he originally created The Office for British TV and then sold the rights to NBC. But TV's history seems to indicate the otherwise can sometimes happen.
And I remember way back...
When Shelley Long packed it in on Cheers in 1987 she'd already enjoyed five big seasons at the top.
TV columns were filled with dire predictions but Cheers not only survived it thrived with a new leading lady in Kirstie Alley and lasted another six seasons at the top.
Not much was heard from Shelley Long, however, she bombed out in several short lived TV series and some dreadful movies.
Much the same thing happened several times on M*A*S*H.
McLean Stevenson departed the show in 1975 after three seasons on top but failed to find sitcom fame of his own on several dreadful shows.
Also departing that year was Wayne Rogers who never again found TV sitcom fame despite repeated efforts.
M*A*S*H recast Stevenson with Harry Morgan and Rogers was replaced as sidekick with Mike Farrell and the newcomers lasted an additional eight years.
But when star Alan Alda decided he'd had enough in 1983 and quit CBS attempted to keep the concept going with something called AfterMASH.
I remember being on the set and telling creator Larry Gelbart that it might not go because viewers would be forever looking at the door, hoping to see Alda saunter in. And I was right.
Sometimes series try to go on after the star has left. When Michael J. Fox exited Sin City in 2001 (and 103 episodes) Charlie Sheen was plopped in but the series never really got its momentum back.
With Chico And The Man Freddie Prinze's suicide in 1977 should have ended the show. But NBC persevered and wiseacres were saying it would be retitled And The Man.
However a new Chico was added in the person of a cute 12-year old runaway(played by Gabriel Melgar). But viewers didn't buy it.
Another time I was on the set of a TV movie shooting in Toronto and star Valerie Harper said she wasn't going back to the shoe named after her for various reasons.
That was in the summer of 1987 but Harper did return --for one more episode before deciding she couldn't take it any more (she felt the kids on the series starting with Jason Bateman were being showcased at her expense).
NBC renamed the series Valerie's Family and killed off her character bringing in Sandy Duncan for a rocky four-years that saw the series never quite regain its steam.
In a bizarre note CBS then signed Harper for another sitcom called The City.
It even ran in the same timeslot (Mondays at 8:30) against Valerie's Family (subsequently renamed The Hogan Family).
Danny Ponce had played one of Valerie's kids on Valerie but on The City his sister LuAnne Ponce played Valerie's new daughter. Confusing, what?
Some departures are all for the better.
When George Clooney left ER for movies there was the predictable chatter about it ruining the show. Instead it thrived by changing cast members almost annually.
But CSI nosedived in the ratings when Bill Peterson handed in his notice and is only now beginning to pick up steam again.
My prediction about The Office: Carell is so integral to the series I'm hoping NBC will let this one die with some dignity.

Brian Linehan Is Back (Sort Of)

So there I was talking to a group of high school media students about the terrible current condition of Canadian TV.
And I mentioned some Canadian hits from the past: Brian Linehan, Take 30, This Land, ENG.
The teens had heard of none of them and why should they?
There are all kinds of American TV fare available on DVD but almost nothing Canadian.
Linehan was the master of the long form of TV entertainment interviewing.
His City Lights TV interview series ran on citytv from 1973 through 1989. I know all about it because not only was I a constant viewer but as TV critic for The Spectator and then The Toronto Star I covered Linehan's comings and goings with some regularity.
But the shows have long been unavailable unless one caught them in reruns in the afternoons on the old citytv --Brian was paid $50 a rerun for these.
But thanks to You Tube some of Linehan's finer moments are up and running and worth the effort at searching them out.
I've been watching portions of Linehan's encounters with Sidney Lumet, Patty Duke, John Kobal, Maggie Smith and Clint Eastwood and found Brian still fascinating.
Remember he worked in the pre-Internet era. To gather his research he'd spend days at the Toronto Reference Library thumbing through yellowed clippings for that exact quote. He was passionate about the art of interviewing but his ratings were always low.
In 1989 he quarreled with management and departed, thinking CTV or CBC would pick him up but it never happened. He never again had a long-running series. I found him at times difficult, bitchy, but always enthusiastic and right on when it came to profiling a guest.
Linehan was surprised by his swift decline but I was not. There are no TV interview shows of depth anymore outside of Inside The Actor's Studio --and Linehan never used a clip board.
Hopefully the day will come when Linehan's best will be out on DVD, too (he died in 2007).
Meanwhile there's You Tube.

Remembering Ronald Neame

The obituaries for greatish film director Ronald Neame were muted at best.
Look, I know the guy who died at 99 was inactive in recent years.
But consider his output: he photographed such classics as Major Barbara (1941), One Of Our Aircraft Was Missing (1942) (Oscar nominated), This Happy Breed (1944) and Blithe Spirit (1945).
Then he produced great films still watched today: Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948).
When he turned to directing he made such memorable fare as The Horse's Mouth (1958), Tunes Of Glory (1960), I Could Go On Singing (1963), The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie (1969).
When I first met up with him in 1984 over lunch in Los Angeles he cheerfully said he was living off the proceeds of his 1972 disaster epic The Poseidon Adventure --he was given 5% of the box office in return for rescuing the film after other directors had departed.
Here are a few choice remarks I recorded:
On Major Barbara: "We shot it during the height of the Blitz then pulverizing London. One day Rex Harrison had Wendy Hiller in his arms and the air raid sirens started blaring. Rex simply dropped her and ran for cover as fast as he could. Poor Wendy was left dazed and confused --she thought she was making a Shavian comedy of wit and here we're being bombed by the Nazis.
On Blithe Spirit : "At one point (director) David Lean wanted Myrna Loy as the wife but Constance Cummings did just fine. Noel Coward told Rex Harrison he was only fit to be a used car salesman but Rex didn't care, he had that certain wicked charm. But the film was stolen by Kay Hammond as Elvira and by Margaret Rutherford. I shot it in what I called muted Technicolor. Anything more garish and it would have seemed absurd."
On Great Expectations: "I produced it and every day David Lean would plead for just one more day to wrap up some scene that added to his masterpiece. But very little of the Dickens novel is actually used. We had to be brutal. David and I had seen it done as an abridged play and knew we had to film it. Among the stage players were Alec Guinness as Herbert Pocket and Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham and both were hired for the film."
On Tunes Of Glory: "Alec Guinness and John Mills were signed and then exchanged parts. And then told me. Alec was suprisingly supreme as the Scottish. lackadaisical colonel and Johnny was superb as the martinet. It was a real actor's feast down to the wire. Who won? I considered it an acting tie."
On The Poseidon Adventure: "Pure tosh but I loved doing it. I simply gathered together as many character actors as possible and let them go at it. When Shelley Winters dives underwater she did it like a gigantic orca complete with belly flop. The set all had to be built upside down to show the liner had completely overturned. People flocked to it like I could not believe. And it made me a very rich man."
On The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie: "Vanessa Redgrave phoned me up and said 'I absolutely refuse to play that proto-fascist on the screen.' She'd done so on the stage and was too predictable, I felt. I was so relieved. I didn't like her mannered performance. I had to have Maggie Smith and she was predictably wonderful and got the Oscar that year and it was richly deserved. So there, Vanessa."