All Stories FeedNews Archive:
Sitcom chasing Betty White
American cable television network TV Land has ordered its first original sitcom Hot in Cleveland starring Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves and Wendie Malick as women who end up moving to an old home in Cleveland.
In the pilot episode Betty White plays a cranky caretaker of the house, but so far she isn’t noted as a series regular.
Having proven she is still sharp, winning a Screen Actor’s Awards Lifetime Achievement, and landing a very funny Super Bowl ad, she is now being actively pursued by the network to appear in more eps.
10 …
7TWO hits 6.0%
On Saturday night 7TWO hit a big viewer share of 6.0% -the biggest audience yet reached by a digital channel.
It overshadowed the share of its direct competitors: GO! had 3.6%, ONE 2.4%, ABC2 1.9%, ABC3 0.6% and SBS TWO 0.4%. In fact it was only just behind SBS ONE on 6.4%.
The top show on 7TWO was A Touch of Frost on 253,000, pulling a huge 101,000 viewers in Melbourne alone. A week earlier it was 189,000 nationally. Heartbeat pulled another 200,000 while a week earlier it was the same at 199,000. …
Fringe without benefits
Q: So why would GO! bother taking out single episodes of Fringe and Eleventh Hour just to play a movie and then reschedule them next week instead? It shouldn’t really matter on GO! right? Wrong.
A: It’s the final week of ratings. As of yesterday the Nine Network and the Seven Network were tied on exactly 27.9% each in the 18-49 demographic for the survey year.
Of course, that includes both GO! and 7TWO in the equation, which have only both been on air together for a handful of weeks. But winning that …
Hank gets yanked
Kelsey Grammer has just lost another comedy series with ABC cancelling Hank, in which he plays a Wall Street executive who loses his job and reconnects with his small-town family.
The show will stop production after wrapping up at episode 10.
Just five episodes have aired in the US where it aired as the only traditional sitcom amid single-camera series.
But neither critics nor audiences warmed to the show.
In Australia it is one of Nine’s acquisitions, which might now have to re-think whether to shift the show to the summer season (and it may …
In defence of Two and a Half Men
It seems even in America there are those who just don’t get Two and a Half Men. Despite the fact it is the country’s #1 comedy, it is frowned upon by many critics and “TV snobs.”
In Australia it’s not much different. The show continues to pull a surprisingly big audience, despite Nine’s best attempts to run it into the ground. Yet it’s hard to find much love for it amongst reviewers (I’d certainly fall into that grouping too).
Save for Chuck Lorre’s output, the traditional 3-cam live-audience show is bit of a …
Big Bang Theory, 2.5 Men renewed
As expected, Chuck Lorre’s Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory have been given long renewals by CBS.
Two and a Half Men has a three-season pickup which keeps it on air its ninth season in 2011-12 season. The Big Bang Theory has scored two more seasons to 2010-11.
It follows a legal spat between CBS and Warner Bros after the latter filed a US$49 million suit arguing that CBS refused to pay sums it had agreed to hand over to the studio if Two and a Half Men …
Returning: The Big Bang Theory
Nine is bringing the sitcom The Big Bang Theory back to screen this month, despite it being dropped from the schedule earlier this year.
It will move into 8pm Wednesday from November 19th, replacing Two and a Half Men. It returns with episode five “The Hamburger Postulate.”
The slot has recently been Nine’s biggest audience for the week, so this time the show has every opportunity to find a following.
The comedy about a bunch of geeks rooming across the hall from an attractive blonde is directed by the legendary James Burrows, responsible for …