The Coolest Satire of the Bill O'Reilly Gaffe Clip I Have Seen Yet

Warning: Explicit Language

Old School TV News Rules Vs the New School

When I first posted my column Thursday lamenting the habit of local TV health reporters to retrack nearly word-for-word stories prepared by other affiliates and news services such as Ivanhoe Broadcast News, I got an interesting email from an out-of-town TV professional who suggested the rules of TV news have changed significantly in the last 15 years.

This person tagged the blame on the preponderance of sales managers becoming TV station general managers, the pressure to squeeze more money out of understaffed stations and the flood of veterans leaving the industry -- leaving younger executives with less grounding in ethics.

My email pal, who shall remain nameless, also provided a funny list of rules -- old school TV news vs new school -- to illustrate how much things have changed. To preserve this person's job, I pass the list along without attribution as a little bit of funny you can take with you to enjoy the weekend... 

Old rule: news is news.  New rule: news is marketing.

Old rule:  news is never old  New rule:  news has an expiration date

Old rule:  live shots compliment the story  New rule:  live IS the story

Old rule:  weather gets the attention it deserves   New rule:  rain is a lead story

Old rule:  Cover the issues    New rule:  cover the emotions

Old rule:  Staff experience is valuable  New rule:  1 year is experience

Old rule:  Cover breaking news  New rule:  make up breaking news

Old rule:  Build credibility and you'll gain a bigger audience   New rule:  Reach more people through the Internet

Old rule:  Be good storytellers    New rule:  more stories, less telling 

Old rule:  Report the facts    New rule:  report what people say

Old rule:  Follow the news director's lead   New rule:   Who's the news director?

Old rule:  Consultants suggest   New rule:  Consultants control

Old rule:  Ratings rule   New rule:  Demos dominate

Old rule:  Know your community   New rule:  know your research

Old rule:  Bad staff behavior is not tolerated   New rule:  address your questions to our attorneys

Deggans PunditWatch '08: Talking About BET with NPR

The last time I talked to an NPR reporter about BET -- senior correspondent-turned-news analyst Juan Williams -- all my comments ended up on the cutting room floor. I think that was because I didn't agree wth the way Williams kept trying to get me to call BET's programming "pornography" -- which I thought was a bit over the top.

Fortunately, correspondent Neda Ulaby wasn't quite so strident, allowing me to express my conflicted feelings about BET in a story she developed for Morning Edition today. I think the channel airs a lot of awful programming, but they also air some interesting stuff and the reasons they air what they do isn't simple as a white-owned channel pimping black people.

One thing Ulaby only referenced slightly in her piece, for instance, is this fact: Black TV households seem attracted to the kind of programming BET's critics often criticize.

A look at cable TV ratings in black households for lasty week shows -- apart from the NBA playoffs in the first eight slots -- that TBS' House of Payne, VH1's Flavor of Love 3, BET's College Hill and VH1's Miss Rap Supreme were the top-rated cable shows in black households. None of these shows would likely get the stamp of approval from BET's critics (except Payne, which avoids criticism for its buffoonish characters through the weight of creator Tyler Perry's sterling image with black people).

It makes sense -- the first 20 spots among all cable TV households were the NBA playoffs, two Indiana jones movies, Spongebob Squarepants, WWE wrestling and MTV's The Hills. People, no matter what color, seem to enjoy watching a lot of nonsense.   

American Idol Syesha's Exit Interview: Even She Thought Happy Feet Song Was Weird

In her exit interview press conference after getting ejected from American Idol Wednesday, Sarasota native Syesha Mercado confirmed something this critic suspected from the moment she finished her performances Tuesday.

Producers' decision to have her sing a song from the animated film Happy Feet was awfully odd, indeed. (See it here)

"I was like, 'That's strange'...most of the song was backup singing," said Mercado, who faced reporters by telephone conference call Thursday. "It was weird, because most of the song, I wasn't supposed to sing."

After that performance, Mercado said she knew she was leaving Idol. "I got too many bad comments from the judges to keep me there. So I accepted what was, and I moved on. And I made peace with it."

Mercado insisted during the call that she and her family were fine with the turn of events, even as some reporters noted she seemed to embody the Idol ethic of flowering as a star during the competition and producers' seemed to sabotage her performance by forcing her to sing that awful song.

As she said during her Tampa Bay publicity tour, initial problems with her voice freaked her out a bit and kept her from getting comfortable on the show until later. But that became a lucky turn, allowing her to continually raise her game each week as other contestants burned out or crumbled under the strain.

What seems obvious: a big part of suceeding on Idol is dealing with the stress of the competition. "I separated that fine line, between overworking and doing so much to point you're unfocused, not enjoying yourself, and doing enough and trusting yourself and letting go and tasking it all in. So my goal every week was to feel satisfied after every show."

So what will her first album sound like? "I’m like a black Christina Aguilera/Alicia Keyes.  I definitely can see myself putting together a Christina Aguilera album, the one that she just recently did – and an Alicia Keyes album like The Diary of Alicia Keyes.  I’m definitely into a lot of the – I like pop, and I like R&B, and I like the old school/new school thing.  So I’m growing as an artist.  I’m evolving.  And I’m glad that I did do American Idol because people were able to see that transition that I went through, and I’m still learning more about myself everyday."

It's well known that Mercado's father struggled with addiction problems when she was a child, getting arrested multiple times: "Having my dad struggle through that, it really, really – it really made me sad a lot of my life.  It actually made me understand people more and be more….  I told myself that I’m not going to let this determine what my future is going to be.  I’m going to do something good.  And I’m going to help my dad and encourage him and be there for him.  And I’m going to make him proud, so that he wants to make me proud, and that’s exactly what he’s doing now."

How did the hard times define her? "The reason I even brought up my struggle in the beginning, at my first audition, is because my past doesn’t determine who I am.  And I don’t feel ashamed of telling encouraging uplifting stories to people because they’re going to – everybody’s going to find out eventually my story.  And some people are going to get the story wrong, and it already has been gotten wrong a lot.  People are like, “Oh, you’re homeless.”  I’m like, “What?  What are you talking about?”  Ask me what my story is."

Right now, her story is about rehearsing for the Idol tour and preparing for whatever opportunities may come next. Since past experience indicates Idols don't have much time to make their mark before fans move on to the next crop of contestants, she's got a serious challenge ahead. 
   

Fox's Fall 2008 Schedule: Six New Shows For America's Shortest Prime Time

Because Fox has one less hour of prime time each night than competing networks, it's big news when the American Idol network OKs six new TV shows - as much new product as any other network this year.

Part of the problem, frankly, is the same one Fox struggles with every year -- other than American Idol, House and 24, the network has a tough time developing hits. Even the shows introduced this year which are coming back -- The Terminator spinoff Sarah Connor Chronicles and lie detector game show Moment of Truth -- started strong and finished weaker in their debut runs.

  The big buzz is reserved for Fringe, the new series from entertainment's new Midas, J.J. Abrams (Lost, Mission Impossible III, Star Trek), about a trio who uncover a deadly mystery involving a plane which lands with everyone on board dead (shades of Lost!). Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon has Dollhouse, featuring Eliza Dushku as an action hero who has her mind wiped after every mission. And Secret Millionaire is a permutation of Oprah's Big Give, in which a real-life millionaire goes undercover as a common person to find people who need their help.

Headed to the showers: Canterbury's Law, Back to You, New Amsterdam, K-ville, Next Great American Band and Nashville.      

FOX PRIMETIME SCHEDULE: FALL 2008
(All Times ET/PT)

New shows in bold, WT stands for Working Title, which means the name may change.

MONDAY
8:00-9:00 PM    TERMINATOR: SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES          
9:00-10:00 PM  PRISON BREAK                      

TUESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM            HOUSE          
9:00-10:00 PM            FRINGE                      

WEDNESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM            BONES                      
9:00-9:30 PM            ‘TIL DEATH                      
9:30-10:00 PM            DO NOT DISTURB (wt)                      

THURSDAY
8:00-9:00 PM            THE MOMENT OF TRUTH                      
9:00-10:00 PM            KITCHEN NIGHTMARES                      

FRIDAY
8:00-9:00 PM            ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A 5th GRADER?                      
9:00-10:00 PM            DON’T FORGET THE LYRICS!                      

SATURDAY
8:00-8:30 PM            COPS          
8:30-9:00 PM            COPS          
9:00-10:00 PM      AMERICA’S MOST WANTED    
11:00 PM-Midnight            MADtv          
Midnight-12:30 AM            TALKSHOW WITH SPIKE FERESTEN

SUNDAY
7:00-8:00 PM            THE OT (NFL post-game)          
8:00-8:30 PM            THE SIMPSONS          
8:30-9:00 PM            KING OF THE HILL          
9:00-9:30 PM            FAMILY GUY          
9:30-10:00 PM            AMERICAN DAD

Click on the link below to see Fox's January schedule, including American Idol and 24:                      

Kelly Clarkson Most Successful Idol Recording Artist Ever, According to Nielsen Co.

The experts in crunching pop culture entertainment data, the Nielsen Company (yes, they do the TV ratings, too) have come up with a raft of Idol-focused data dissecting this TV-fed pop culture phenomenon -- probably to help those of us struggling to pull interesting story ideas out of the long-predicted David vs. David finale next week.

My thoughts: Remember when I said pop and rock stars make more money for Idol than R&B stars? And isn't it surprising to see that Idol's biggest audience block is twice as old as the competitors? And is it a sign of erosion that debut albums from the last two Idol winners haven't sold $1-million copies?

Here's a sample of Nielsen's reports:

TV Ratings -- People age 35-49 watched American Idol Season 7 the most, making up almost 29% of the total audience.  The most watched episode this season was the premiere episode on Tuesday, 1/15/08 averaging 33 million viewers. American Idol’s highest viewership was Season 5 (Taylor Hicks and Chris Daughtry's season), where more than 30 million people watched on average, compared to 12 million the first season and 27 million this current season.

Mobile -- The average American Idol participant voted via text message 38 times in April 2008. Women tend to vote via text with greater frequency than men: in April 2008, female voters of American Idol submitted 44% more text-message votes than their male counterparts.

Music -- Kelly Clarkson is the best selling American Idol contestant with album and digital download sales of 18.9 million.  Carrie Underwood is second with album and digital download sales of 15.7 million. Until 2006, when the winner was Taylor Hicks, each season's "American Idol" champ sold at least 1 million copies on his or her debut album. Last year's winner, Jordin Sparks, hasn't reached that level yet, either. 

Online -- Male contestants David Cook, David Archuleta and Jason Castro dominate the show’s consumer discussion online with 14.3% and 12.5% and 10.5% buzz volume, respectively.  The most popular American Idol contestant from opinions and feedback from Hey! Nielsen’s online panel is Carrie Underwood.  Web traffic to American Idol websites saw the most unique visitors in March 2007. 

Advertising -- During 2007, American Idol featured 4,349 product placement occurrences.  So far in 2008, the number of placements is surging—the program racked up 3,291 occurrences the first three months of 2008 alone.

Idol Artist Record Sales and Digital Download Totals:

Kelly Clarkson               9.4 million     9.4 million   
Carrie Underwood         8.5 million     7.2 million   
Clay Aiken                    4.8 million     469,000
Chris Daughtry             4 million       5.2 million   
Ruben Studdard            2.5 million     250,000
Fantasia                      2.3 million     698,000
Bo Bice                        721,000 474,000
Jordin Sparks               717,000 n/a   
Taylor Hicks                 702,000 344,000
Katharine McPhee        371,000 1.1 million   
Blake Lewis                 291,000 n/a   
Justin Guarini             143,000 28,000

Highest Selling Idol Artist Albums

Carrie Underwood  Some Hearts (2005) 6.4 million   
Kelly Clarkson    Breakaway (2004)      6.0 million   
Daughtry           Daughtry (2007)         4.0 million   
Clay Aiken        Measure of a Man (2003) 2.8 million    

Should Local TV Reporters Disclose When They are Reciting Someone Else's Words?

It was something I noticed when I decided to take a closer look at the health reporting on local TV stations.

Often, stories would present sources without identifying where they lived. Or the piece would unfold over long minutes without showing the reporter with the subjects or at any of the locations.

For the educated viewer, these were giveaway clues: these anchors were likely voicing a script prepared somewhere else, using footage shot somewhere else. A few Google searches later, I found several stories where local health reporters had simply re-voiced stories, almost word-for-word, provided by news services such as Ivanhoe Broadcast News and Medstar Television.

Typically, the reporters don't reveal these sources in their pieces, which I think leads viewers to believe they are reporting these stories themselves. It's a practice TV stations have indulged for many years, but I've never felt it was totally honest with the viewer, so I wrote a column dissecting the issue for today newspaper.

I understand why it happens: TV stations want their health franchises to appear regularly -- usually too often to rely on stories turned by a single reporter. At WFTS-Ch. 28, health reporter Linda Hurtado also happens to be the station's 5:30 p.m. news anchor, which makes negotiating the workload a challenge. And producers have often written scripts for reporters and news anchors to voice.

But at a time when new outlets are handling more sources of information than ever, we'll have to be more careful about disclosing where that material comes from -- particularly when it involves taking stories wholesale which are repeated, word-for-word, at other stations.

Here's a story on the use of art to help those suffering from Alzheimer's disease that ran on WFTS.

And here's the same story on a station in Moline, Ill. And also the same story done in Orlando; though the text on their Web site is different, the video uses the same script.

American Idol Jumps the Shark: Boots the Show's Best Singer in Sarasota Gal Syesha

My love hate relationship with American Idol just turned to hate again.

Not just because they kept me out of all the shots of Syesha Mercado's triumphant homecoming Friday, even though I was just out of camera range for most of what they showed tonight. Or because they let former Idol winner Fantasia perform a song so wack even Simon Cowell could only stare, slack-jawed and amazed, that she had dumped such a load of nonsense on TV's highest-rated show.

No, my hate rises this time because Idol has once again ejected its best singer and performer before the singing and performing competition is actually done -- booting Sarasota gal Mercado in a way that felt a bit like an inside job.

I've said before that Idol wants a rocker to win this one, and that attitude was evident Tuesday, as Cowell kept complimenting scruffy rocker David Cook even though it seemed he had given up trying to bring anything new to his performances weeks ago. Andy Gibb-in-the-making David Archuleta has always looked a bit hollow -- a wide-eyed smile plastered on his face like he'd snuck into Paula Abdul's vicodin.

Syesha was the only performer left who seemed to be fulfilling the show's mission -- flowering into a bona-fide stage presence before the camera's eye. But she was always a bit of a misfit; the contestant who refused to go down, no matter how many times Cowell and the producers tried tripping her up.

On Tuesday, it came down to song choices. Producers stuck her with Gia Farrell's Hit Me Up -- a jittery tune from the Happy Feet soundtrack that was so odd, even Cowell and Randy Jackson were joking about how silly it was. Archuleta and Cook got songs right in their wheelhouse; a sugary sweet ballad and a rocking Aerosmith tune, respectively. Syesha got a song about penguins.

No matter. She's got a voice strong enough to power a Fantasia-style R&B album, and performance chops sharp enough to hang on Broadway, where most Idol also-rans eventually land.

But it's possible Idol may have created another Daughtry -- kicking off the performer mostly likely to maintain a career in their lust to chase a more desirable winner -- this time, a rock star named David Cook.

I think Archuleta's going to win this thing next week. But the real loser is Idol, which has proven to all of us still watching that maybe it doesn't deserve to be a TV phenomenon anymore. And, given the way the show's ratings are dipping this season, it probably won't be for much longer.      

Two Examples of an Important TV Truth: Never Lose it on a TV News Set

I don't know why experienced TV journalists never learn this lesson. But the current online climate makes it plain: famous anchors lose their tempers on set at their own peril.

Industry veterans know that production staffers, who often earn many times less the salaries of the highly-paid, high-strung primadonnas losing it publicly, love to secretly roll tape when a famous face is having a tantrum. Rest assured that the embarrassing video will surface later, plunked online by someone who got a bootleg tape from a friend of a friend and can't wait to share it with cyberspace.

Here is Bill O'Reilly blowing his top when he was an anchor on Inside Edition, apparently upset that someone didn't write a tagline capping the end of the show, just before proving that he didn't really need the script, anyway.

Here's the F-word heard around cyberspace -- New York anchor Sue Simmons loosing the F-word at the end of a promo she thought was being taped, but was actually airing live.

    

CBS New Fall Season: Five News Shows, More Lame Comedies and More Bruckheimer

What does it mean when the biggest news about a major network's new fall schedule is that it didn't lose a marginal comedy to a competitor?

Judge for yourself as CBS unveils its fall 2008 schedule to the industry today, with the big news that floundering Julia Louis Dreyfus comedy The New Adventures of Old Christine is not taking the Scrubs route and defecting to ABC. Instead, it will kick off a new hour of comedy at 8 p.m. Wednesdays sure to extend the reach of mediocre sitcoms that have taken over the net's Monday night schedule.

Without a Trace moves to CBS' death spot at 10 p.m. Tuesdays; this timeslot killed Jericho and Cane, wonder what it will do to an established hit like Trace? Rules of Engagement is held for midseason, giving David Spade the fall to occupy himself.

Among the new shows, we have a British import from CSI mastermind Jerry Bruckheimer about a guy who investigates scientific oddities called Eleventh Hour, Jay Mohr and Paula Marshall as recent divorcees trying to start new relationships in Project Gary; Simon Baker trying series TV for the third time in a rip-off of USA Network's Psych about a super-observant guy who solves crimes called The Mentalist, and a comedy which seems ripped from Meet the Parents about a guy who keeps screwing up while trying to impress his fiancee's parents called Worst Week.

See a clip of the British version of Eleventh Hour -- which I wish they would have just brought to America -- starring Patrick Stewart as the investigative dude here.

These programs seem to play to CBS' strengths: mediocre comedies and formulaic action/dramas. I'll get the spin at 4 p.m. when CBS fires up a webcast of its annual upfront presentation at Carnegie Hall in NYC.

What has bitten the dust: Kid Nation, Shark, Moonlight, Jericho and Viva Laughlin.

Here's the fall sked, new shows in bold:

MONDAY
8:00-8:30 PM              THE BIG BANG THEORY
8:30-9:00 PM              HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER
9:00-9:30 PM              TWO AND A HALF MEN
9:30-10:00 PM           WORST WEEK (N)
10:00-11:00 PM          CSI: MIAMI

TUESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM              NCIS
9:00-10:00 PM           THE MENTALIST (N)
10:00-11:00 PM          WITHOUT A TRACE (New Time)

WEDNESDAY
8:00-8:30 PM              THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE (New Time)
8:30-9:00 PM             PROJECT GARY (N)
9:00-10:00 PM            CRIMINAL MINDS
10:00-11:00 PM          CSI: NY

THURSDAY
8:00-9:00 PM              SURVIVOR
9:00-10:00 PM            CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION
10:00-11:00 PM         ELEVENTH HOUR (N)

FRIDAY
8:00-9:00 PM              GHOST WHISPERER
9:00-10:00 PM           THE EX LIST (N)
10:00-11:00 PM          NUMB3RS

SATURDAY
8:00-9:00 PM              CRIMETIME SATURDAY
9:00-10:00 PM            CRIMETIME SATURDAY
10:00-11:00 PM          48 HOURS MYSTERY

SUNDAY
7:00-8:00 PM              60 MINUTES
8:00-9:00 PM              THE AMAZING RACE
9:00-10:00 PM            COLD CASE
10:00-11:00 PM          THE UNIT (New Time)