NBC On Top

A trustworthy NBC source describes the mood inside the peacock proud network these days as "euphoric".
As it should be.
For the last few years NBC has been mired in fourth place. The network just got over the expensive folly of moving Jay Leno out of late nights and into weeknights at 10.
Leno bombed and is going back to the Tonight Show.
Then NBC so riled the normally affable Conan O'Brien that he asked to be released from his contract --NBC had to pay him off with something like $45 million in loose change.
But all that has changed after 10 nights of Olympics coverage. Or 26 million viewers a day.
Now NBC is temporarily ratings king.ABC is now fourth.
But can NBC's leadership last when the Olympics are a mere memory?
NBC says it just might. The network has been promoting Leno's return to Toight and there is hope he'll quickly dethrone Letterman from number one position.
NBC says it has a new 10 p.m. drama series The Parenthood that may click mightily.
And there's a new reality comedy thing called The Marriage Ref.
But NBC knows from experience promoting stinkers during the Beijing Olympics failed to help such series as My Own Worst Enemy gain audience acceptance.
Still the Olympics are such a big thing ratings wise that the cumulative totals might push NBC into an ocverall third place finish for the season.
But I'm one who remembers when NBC was first back in the days when the network had such roaring hits as Seinfeld, ER and Friends.

The Next TV Season

Forget about this TV seaason as soon as you can.
The networks already have. They're firmly on track for the next pilot season as they greenlight dozens of projects that may or may not premiere in September.
Here's what I've learned so far.NBC, the peacock proud network is in dire need of edgy 10 p.m. dramas now that The Jay Leno Show is but a bitter memory.
It's no secret the network has gone back to seasoned producers to request new product. And it's no surprise David E. Kelly (Boston Legal) has responded with --guess what --another legal show about a patent lawyer and his buddies who form a different sort of law practice.
NBC loves remakes --Recent examples include the resurrections of The Bionic Woman as well as Knight Ridder. So why does the news the web wants to reinvent The Rockford Files not surprise me?
From Jerry Bruckheimer (CSI) there's an hour thing called Chase that looks at U.S. Marshalls on the prowl for the most notoriopus American criminals.
There's a single-camera sitcom called The Adam Carolla Project which is being co-produced by Jimmy Kimmel among others and has Carolla as a single dad who's a building contractor.
Also high on NBC's list is the sitcom Nature Vs. Nurture about a heart doctor finding his real father and brothers decades after he was adopted by others.
CBS has to be concerned about its aging hour procedurals which include three CSI clones, Criminal Minds and Cold Case.But CBS is going ahead with a Criminal Minds spin off after the success this season of NCIS: Los Angeles.
And there's going to be a revived Hawaii Five-0 that will be shot back in Hawaii. Alex O'Loughlin headlines this one I'm hearing.
CBS has a hand over from 2009 called I Witness about a professor of criminology and former detective who uses mind games to solve crimes.
Eugene Levy and Kristin Kreuk are two Canadians set for the CBS sitcom pilot Living On A Prayer --all about an unmarried couple in Pittsburgh.
Another Canuck, Bill Shatner, is back yet again in Sh++ My Dad Says which is actually based on producer Justin Halpern's Twitter account or so he claims.
CW sources say Melrose Place will probably be cancelled after anemic ratings and could be replaced by a remake of the Toronto-made series Nikita but with a completely new cast.
And ABC? It all depends on the future of FlashForward and V.
From Grey's Anatomy maven Shonda Rhimes comes Off The Map to be shot in Puerto Rico focusing, of course, on three doctors in a tropical hospital.
And ABC also has the Jerry Bruckheimer hour pilot The Whole truth, yet another legal drama.
Poppy Montgomery (Without A Trace) may star in True Blue set in San Francisco and all about homicide detectives.
Among sitcoms Damon Wayans (My Wife And Kids) may do one about a couple who break up at the altar.
And Matthew Perry is peddling a sitcom comeback titled Mr. Sunshine where he'll manage a sports arena.
Got all that?

American Idol Hits Gold

American Idol won gold Tuesday night against NBC's mighty Olympics coverage in the U.S. TV ratings wars.
A huge audience of 23 million watched Idol on Fox against 20.3 million viewers who chose NBC's Olympics coverage.
But Idol also smashed its way to victory four years ago against the Torino Winter Olympics.
NBC says its telecast of the opening ceremonies from Vancouver reached 33 million viewers making it the most watched U.S.program of the week.
NBC has been heavily criticized for not showing all the events live. The Tuesday snowboarding was seen on a taped delay basis and NBC chose to go live on the east coast with figure skating,
And even in the west events are being shown tape delayed even though Vancouver is within the same time zone.
Meanwhile Mark Adams, director of communications for the International Olympic Committee, says he does not recognize the portrait of the games as drawn by the British press.
"You wonder from what city they're reporting. What they're sayinmg bears absolutely no relation to what I've seen at the competitions."
Stories included coverage of the fatality and the cancellation of 20,000 tickets at the snowboarding venue.

More Great Olympic Ratings

Day 4 of the Olympics saw 7.1 million Canadians watch as Alexandre Bilodeau got his Gold Medal.
CTV says the Olympic Consortium attracted 4.5 million viewers during its daytime broadcast and 5.3 million during prime time hours.
When it's all added up CTV says "80 per cent of all people in English Canada and 71 per cent of Francophones in Quebec experienced the Games".
Sportsnet broke its own ratings record as 1.9 million viewers watched Jeremy Witherspoon's, Men's 500 Long Track Speed Skating race. On TSN the number one watched event was the Canada/Switzerland women's hockey match.
My only complaint: CTV should stop trying to rev up the proceedings with its mantra about winning gold. That sort of conduct belittles the achievements of every Canadian participant.
And if there's one on-air celebrity driving me crazy it's Lisa LaFlamme.
The guy who seems most tickled to be there is veteran CBC hsand turner CTVer Brian Williams. At the last Olympics CBC had him in a booth in Toronto to save money. Now he's on site and just happy to be there.

Y'All Watch Swamp Loggers, Hear?

You can't spend every waking moment watching the Vancouver Olympics can you?
Well, how about something very, very different, the latest reality epic titled Swamp Loggers?
Look, we have reality shows about practically every occupation these days. So why not one about a bunch of North Carolina loggers working in a swamp?
It's actually quite funny --almost as good as Dog The Bounty Hunter which is at my apex of reality situations.
Them thar guys speak such heavily fractured Southerner style that frequently the subtitles come up.
And I know you're going to wonder about watching a bunch of trees being felled in a swamp. Is this any way for an adult viewer to spend his/her TV time?
The show is compulsively watchable is all I can say. It's already up and running on U.S. TV where it has edged past a new drama series Caprica starring Eric Stoltz. The reason is we get to know what makes these loggers tick. And deep in the swamps there are gators lurking.
Star of the show is family man logger Bobby Goodson and his gang of he men including son Justin.
"It's all about rhythm," explains Justin as another tree is felled. Working in rhythm the gang can fell 20 truckfulls of logs a day but if they aren't acting in unison then all hell breaks firth.
There's that freak snowstorm that damaged the rhythm for days afterwards. The price of oil goes sky high meaning Bobby's business is in jeopardy and then comes word the mill is shutting down at the end of the week.
Swamp Loggers runs four weeks and it's pretty good, a welcome antidote to all the Olympics on the other channels.
SWAMP LOGGERS PREMIERES TUESD. FEB. 16 AT 10 P.M. ON DISCOVERY.
MY RATING: ***.

Olympics Coverage Is Everywhere!

Of course CTV is in a collective tizzy over record numbers for its Olympics coverage.
I'm glued to Canadian coverage but I'm also taking selected peeks at NBC's take. And it seems to me these competing networks are covering very different Olympics.
CTV is emphasizing the Canadian wins, NBC goes for an American feel. So what is wrong with that?
On Saturday night CTV reports The Ladies Moguls Finals averaged a whopping 6.6 million viewers as Jenn Heil won a Solver medal for Canada. However, she was under tremendous pressure to deliver Gold wasn't she?
CTV says average coverage by its Broadcast Consortium Saturday averaged 1.4 million in the morning, 4.9 million in daytime and 5.4 million in what's deemed "Olympic Prime Time."
That means 27 million Canadians tuned in to some part of the coverage and that represents 27 per cent of the Canadian population.
Anyway you look at it mighty impressive.

CTV Olympics Success

Now this is more like it. CTV claims the overnight ratings on the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Winter Olympics went through the roof.
Beautifully staged (except for that hydraulic problem), the ceremonies showed the world what Canada is all about.
CTV says on average 13.3 million Canadians watched every single minute of the 3.5 hour ceremony.
World viewers got a sumptuous recreation of Canadian history through the cultural aspects of the aboriginal people and the changing seasons.
And there was the loss on the first day of the young luge participant from Georgia who was fittingly remembered.
Great moments: how about k.d. lang's performance or the march in of so many home grown celebrities from Donald Sutherland to Anne Murray?
And the selection of many well known athletes to collectively light the flame was brilliant.
Previously the Gold Medal hockey game at Salt Lake City in 2002 attracted 10.3 million.
CTV says 23 million viewers or two out of every three Canadians (69%) tuned in to some part of the ceremony.
By contrast 4.24 million Canadians watched the opening games in Calgary in 1988 and 1.64 million watched the opening ceremonies of Beijing in 2008.
Says CTV:"A total of 26 million Canadians representing 78 % of the population experienced the 2010 Winter Games on the platforms of Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium.