'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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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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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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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.

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Networks lose ground in the fall TV season

Networks Lose Ground By Gary Levin, USA TODAY In a continuation of a steady trend, he big networks continue to lose viewers, only two new shows are successes, and there's not much excitement among fans. Prime-time viewership is up 2% this fall, but fans aren't going to the major networks their TV. MORE: How the major networks are faring SURVEY RESULTS: What you thought of the season so far •Last winter's writers' strike crimped development of new shows: Only 14 scripted series joined the schedule. •ABC and NBC lost big bets that viewers would return to five holdover series benched last winter during the strike (ABC's Pushing Daisies, Private Practice and Dirty Sexy Money, and NBC's Chuck and Life). •An electrifying presidential campaign has nearly tripled viewership for the three major cable news networks in October, draining potential audience, while other cable channels once leery of fall now compete aggressively. Univision and MyNetwork TV also have gained viewers. •And continued growth in streaming online and time-shifting with DVRs — now in 28% of homes — has stripped the immediacy from scripted TV viewing, and risks leaving once-loyal fans less so. At least one in four viewers of Fringe, Heroes, 90210 and The Office record and watch those shows later. The four biggest networks combined averaged 36.9 million prime-time viewers this fall, down 9%, compounding last year's losses. Among the bright spots, CBS has the smallest decline from last fall, the most new shows and this season's biggest new hit: The Mentalist, a twist on its familiar crime-drama formula, which is averaging nearly 16 million viewers behind NCIS. And remarkably, seven of the network's returning series have gained viewers over last fall, reversing a typical trend for long-running series. With Tina Fey's star on the rise, thanks to her Sarah Palin impression on Saturday Night Live, NBC's 30 Rock returned to series highs last week. But all of the fourth-place network's new series have had mediocre turnouts. ABC, heavily dependent on serialized dramas that target younger women, has seen losses, though it remains a close second among young-adult viewers. CW has narrowed its target to young women, and in that measure has something of a new hit with its 90210 remake. And Fox, always a laggard in fall, has seen declines in almost every returning show (and arecord-low World Series), though Fringe is helping the network bide its time. "They're waiting for 24 and (American) Idol in January," says Brad Adgate of ad buyer Horizon Media. "That changes the whole race." And programmers hope the end of election season will draw more viewers back to prime time, invigorating a ratings race that pales by comparison.

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

'30 Rock' Hits Ratings High

Season premiere of critically-adored but ratings-starved sitcom delivered a 4.1 rating/10 share in the adult 18-49 demo in overnights

By B&C Staff -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/31/2008 12:05:00 PM

CHART: Download primetime broadcast ratings from Oct. 20-26

Sarah Palin is apparently the gift that keeps on giving for NBC after 30 Rock returned to its highest rating ever Thursday night—a 4.1 rating/10 share in the adult 18-49 demo—according to preliminary Nielsen data.

That number was undoubtedly buoyed by curiosity tune-in thanks to Tina Fey’s wildly-popular impersonations of the Republican vice presidential candidate in recent weeks on Saturday Night Live.

The third-season premiere of the critically-adored but ratings-starved 30 Rock held up well out of its lead in of The Office (4.7/12).