CBS News pioneer Don Hewitt reshaped coverage

By Gary Strauss, USA TODAY

Don Hewitt will be best remembered for creating CBS' 60 Minutes, television's most successful newsmagazine. But long before the immediacy of the Internet, Hewitt's pioneering efforts in television's early days were pivotal in shaping the medium as a leading source for breaking-news coverage.

After joining CBS in the late 1940s, he directed TV's first network newscast and orchestrated TV's first presidential debate, the 1960 John F. Kennedy/Richard Nixon faceoff that observers say set the tone for image-driven politics.

Hewitt was instrumental in developing editing, camera and production techniques that remain in wide use today. Says CBS president Les Moonves: "Since the very beginnings of our business, he literally invented so many of the vehicles by which we now communicate the news."

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Relatable characters help fill television's generation gap

By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY

From The Brady Bunch (a Technicolor version of suburban life that still managed to tackle the growing pains of a blended family) to Beverly Hills 90210(a Dante-esque vision of teen life in L.A.'s faux paradise) or Sex and the City(a parable about the highs and lows of singles living New York's vida loca), indelible television always has heart, soul and a fierce familiarity.

In these TV worlds, marriages fracture, babies cry and friends die. Disputes don't always get resolved, and a good laugh doesn't necessarily conquer all. Most of all, they're people and predicaments that become achingly real.

The increasingly fractured nature of today's entertainment landscape means it's unlikely any one television show will ever again capture our collective attention like these TV milestones, Brooks says. But their cathartic kind are still very much needed.

The Brady Bunch may not have felt truly real, but it presented a curious combination of canned one-liners, relationship problems and a willingness to work those out. Brady went on to truly strike cultural gold during its mid-'70s syndication run, which led, decades later, to feature films and a touring stage production.

The Cosby Show, Friends and, to some degree, Seinfeld invited viewers into a world whose characters generated a measure of envy. You wanted to if not live in, then at least visit their domains.

"Friends epitomized aspirational TV with its cast of fit and funny people," says producer Tom Nunan, former entertainment president of UPN and now a visiting assistant professor at the University of California-Los Angeles. "Friends was almost a reaction to dysfunctional shows like Roseanne. Viewers wanted to experience milestones with characters that were similar to their own."

Nunan was among the executives pitched on Friends. "There was no way to tell this was going to be a big hit," he says, laughing. "If I knew what created successful aspirational TV, I'd be richer than Aaron Spelling. It's usually four factors: the show runners behind the program, the perfect concept, the perfect cast and the right network. All those stars have to align. It's ephemeral."

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10 shows with ageless appeal

'Wheel of Fortune' is ready to spin its 5000th Show

By Bill Keveney, USA TODAY

The top-rated syndicated series - Wheel of Fortune - celebrates its 5,000th episode Friday, a milestone achieved by few shows in TV history.

In its 26th year, Wheel remains the same old-fashioned game, but with newfangled tweaks along the way. Toss-up puzzles pick up the show's pace and squeeze in more cash-winning opportunities, and fans watching at home can win money online. Wheel, along with fellow Sony production Jeopardy!, was the first syndicated series in high-definition, and it had its first $1 million winner last fall.

"Part of our overall view is that the game should probably stay the same, which it has, but that the show should continue to evolve," says executive producer Harry Friedman, who also oversees Jeopardy!, which just passed 5,700 shows.

After 15,000 contestants, Wheel still regularly wins the weekly syndicated ratings race by a comfortable margin (11.7 million viewers for the week of Feb. 9). Nearly 5 million fans belong to the Wheel Watchers Club, an online viewer loyalty program.

Wheel could go on forever, host Pat Sajak says. "If we lost half our audience tomorrow, we'd still be a top 10 show. … I really believe this may be the show that's never canceled."

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Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

eGuiders cut through clutter of a gazillion videos online

By Mike Snider, USA TODAY

In the golden age of television, TV Guide arrived on newsstands to let viewers know what was being broadcast and when.

Whether this is the golden age of Web videos is debatable. But a new Hollywood-based site, eGuiders.com, launches Tuesday with the intention of becoming a modern guide to the best clips among thousands uploaded daily on dozens of sites.

"There are other sites that say, 'We have the best videos.' But it's done by an algorithm or user-rating tool," says filmmaker and new-media producer Marc Ostrick, who co-founded the site with Columbia University film professor and producer Evangeline Morphos. "We thought actually taking the approach of using experts to guide people to content was going to be the best approach."

Among the experts recommending videos are pop-culture luminaries such as 24 executive producer Jon Cassar, Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof and Private Practice executive producer Mark Tinker. "The idea there is a more structured environment where any video that is available there is already vetted and is being presented by someone you trust, I think, is pretty inspired," Lindelof says.

Videos are categorized by comedy, drama, animation, documentary/non-fiction, music, viral and spinoffs of TV and film. Also promoted: a video pick of the day, and regular interviews and articles on video trends.

"We are trying to reach people who are maybe (ages) 24 to 49 who don't have time to cut through that clutter and go through various websites to find that gem," Ostrick says. "We want to do the searching so our audience can do the watching."

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http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2009-02-16-eguiders-main_N.htm

Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Blip.tv gives videomakers a chance to be a star

By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY

Blip.tv distributes some 38,000 homegrown shows across the Web, and splits ad revenue 50/50 with the folks who make them. Blip attracted 13.2 million viewers in January, according to measurement service Quantcast.

"We target anyone who wants to make quality content and doesn't want to pitch the show to a network TV exec," says Dina Kaplan, Blip's chief operating officer. "There's a lot of great content a network exec might say no to that could be an excellent and profitable Web show."

Internet stars, small audiences

Michael Michaud, whose Chicago-based Channel Awesome production company produces 17 online shows, including the Nostalgia Critic movie review program, began posting shows on Blip in October. His first check was for $25,500. "I'm thrilled," he says. "Before, we were paying $3,000 monthly just to have the shows hosted on our website, and now our hosting is free (from Blip), and we're getting paid as well."

Nostalgia Critic averages 100,000 to 200,000 viewers weekly, Michaud says, while Political Lunch, a three-times-weekly, five-minute chat show about politics, averaged about 500,000 viewers during election season.

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http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2009-02-10-blip-tv-videomakers_N.htm

Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Old TVs cause new problems

By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY

EL CERRITO, Calif. —Televisions carelessly disposed of can be toxic to the environment. A huge backlog of unused old ones (99.1 million, the EPA says) is sitting around in people's homes.

And later this year— either on Feb. 17 or on June 12 if Congress passes a delay— the USA will switch from analog to digital TV transmission. The number of unwanted TVs will go even higher as consumers upgrade to sets capable of receiving high-definition broadcasts. Though a TV set is benign in the living room, it's not when it is broken up to reach the reusable materials inside. There's a lot of lead, a bit of barium, cadmium, chromium, traces of gold and even mercury in the lamps on some flat screens.

The best way to deal with them is not to throw them away at all but to keep using them, says John Cross of EPA's Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery. Buying a converter box or getting cable or satellite TV will keep a TV useful for years. But if TVs are discarded, the federal agency wants to make sure the materials in them are recycled.

Six states have passed laws making it illegal to throw a TV away, and another five are expected to do so in 2010. Eighteen states, as well as New York City, have ordered electronic recycling programs. But not all the laws include televisions, which in the year of digital conversion is unfortunate.

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http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/enviornment/2009-01-26-tv-waste_N.htm

Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Super Bowl pregame ads a tougher sell
By Deborah Yao and Ryan Nakashima, AP Business Writers (AP) — Sales of Super Bowl ads are holding up fairly well, even at $3 million for 30 seconds. But commercial spots that will run in the pregame hours? That's a different ball game. People who buy ad time on behalf of advertisers say NBC is having a tough time selling out the ads that will run in the four hours or more leading up to the Feb. 1 championship. Now the network is making deals to more quickly move unsold inventory for the less-watched but still pricey pregame spots.

Depending on the number of ads bought or the hour of the day, pregame ads can cost about half the price of an in-game commercial, ad buyers said. That would mean some of this year's pregame ads could cost more than $1 million for 30 seconds. While there's typically some unsold pregame spots in the final days before the game, several ad buyers said the bad economy is giving advertisers more pause this year. Sales took a hit after the economy took a drastic turn for the worse last September. Still, advertising buyers were impressed that NBC was able to sell many of its spots during the Super Bowl for a good price considering the downturn. The list price was a record $3 million for 30 seconds, on average, compared to $2.7 million last year. TNS Media is projecting a record haul of $200 million in in-game ad revenue for NBC.

Ad buyers said between six to 10 commercial spots are left to be sold for the game itself.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Find this article at: http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/2009-01-23-pre-super-bowl-game-ads_N.htm