Adweek : Television

TBS Hits 2.6 Million Total Viewers With New Series 'Men at Work'

Sam Thielman — Fri, 25 May 2012 21:14:39 +0000

TBS scored big with Men at Work on Thursday evening. After plenty of promotion during NBA games and a solid lead-in from network all-star The Big Bang Theory, the freshman comedy series debuted to a hearty 2.6 million total viewers, with 1.6 million in the 18-49 year-old demographic beloved of advertisers. The show demonstrated impressive retention from episode to episode, as well—the second back-to-back ep logged 2.3 million viewers, with 1.4 million in the demo.

Men at Work, if it sustains ratings like these, will help TBS move in the direction Turner has taken TNT—namely away from off-net series like Big Bang and toward a full slate of original programs. The network also has J.K. Simmons starrer Sullivan & Son premiering in July and Wedding Band coming in December.

TNT and TBS's evp of programming Michael Wright told NPR this morning that he was hoping to use Big Bang the same way TNT had used Law & Order, which led into the network's biggest series, The Closer. Given that TBS pays a reported $1 million per episode for the show, the ratings are more useful as lead-ins to series TBS owns wholly (it's using reruns of Fox's Family Guy in a similar way on Adult Swim).

Men at Work is exec produced by Breckin Meyer, one of Turner's favorite sons, who, with Mark-Paul Gosselear, stars in the legal dramedy Franklin & Bash. That show is headed into its second season.

Men at Work follows Danny Masterson, James Lesure, Adam Busch and Michael Cassidy as four magazine staffers living fabulous lives and helping one another out of various romantic jams. All four men are uniquely attractive—in nearly perfect imitation of the high-stakes world of real-life journalism.

Ghost Town: The Vanishing 10 p.m. Broadcast Drama

Anthony Crupi — Fri, 25 May 2012 17:09:56 +0000

The 10 o’clock broadcast drama tottered further down the road to oblivion this season, as not a single series in the time slot finished among Nielsen’s highest-rated programs.

Per 33 weeks of live-plus-seven day ratings, plus two-and-a-half weeks of live-plus-same-day ratings, nary a 10 p.m. drama is to be found among TV’s top 40 series. The first to make an appearance on the list is CBS’s Monday night procedural, Hawaii Five-0, which in its second season averaged a 3.3 rating in the adult 18-49 demo.

Hawaii Five-0 tied the CBS comedy Rules of Engagement for 41st place in the demo.

Joining Hawaii Five-0 at the tail end of the top 50 are: CBS’s CSI (3.2), NBC’s Smash (3.2), CBS’s The Mentalist (3.1), and two ABC dramas—Private Practice (3.0) and Revenge (2.9).

Two of the aforementioned series (Smash, Revenge) are freshman efforts. All told, 11 new 10 p.m. dramas were introduced during the 2011-12 broadcast season; along with Smash and Revenge, only ABC’s Scandal has been renewed for a return engagement.

Through seven episodes, Scandal is averaging a 2.5 in the demo, making it No. 73 on the list of top-rated programs.

The eight 10 p.m. dramas that didn’t make the cut are: NBC’s The Playboy Club, Prime Suspect, The Firm and Awake; ABC’s Pan Am and GCB; and CBS’s Unforgettable and NYC 22.

It’s worth noting that a number of 10 p.m. series are among the most-watched. For example, The Mentalist averaged 14.6 million viewers in this, its fourth season on CBS. And while that was good enough to take the No. 11 slot among total viewers, the show’s performance among the all-important 18-49 demo relegated it to 45th place. (The median age of The Mentalist’s audience is 59 years old.)

In fact, most of the 10 p.m. dramas are a little long in the tooth. Hawaii Five-0’s median age is 55, CSI is 57 and Revenge is 52. Private Practice is 51, up from 48 in its inaugural season, while Smash’s median age is 50.

The oldest series in the hour is CBS’s Friday night cop show, Blue Bloods, which serves a median age of 62 years. In fact, Blue Bloods is so grey it has the distinction of having the biggest disparity between its total deliveries and its performance in the 18-49 demo. With an average draw of 12.2 million viewers, the Tom Selleck vehicle is the No. 22 most-watched series on the tube. Meanwhile, its 2.0 rating among the 18-49 set puts it 97th in the demo.

The last time a 10 p.m. drama finished among broadcast’s top 10 was during the 2006-07 campaign, when season three of Lost averaged a 5.8 rating on ABC. Things were markedly different at the turn of the century. At the end of the 1999-2000 campaign, NBC’s ER claimed the No. 1 spot on all of television, averaging a gaudy 12.0 in the dollar demo.

While late drama fizzled, competition series and comedy thrived. Fox’s American Idol eked a win over NBC’s The Voice, averaging a 6.2 in the dollar demo to the upstart’s 6.1. When their respective results shows are factored into the equation, Idol finished with a 5.8 rating, while The Voice drew a 5.1.

Also drawing big numbers was Fox’s The X Factor, which averaged a 4.4 in the demo on Wednesday nights. (With the results show deliveries, Simon Cowell’s new effort averaged a 4.3 rating.) Meanwhile, with an average delivery of 18.2 million viewers in its 13th and 14th cycles, ABC’s Dancing With the Stars was one of the season’s most-watched series—a reach that wasn’t matched by its ratings in the demo. Another rapidly aging show, DWTS’s median age is 60, up 13 percent from 53 years in its premiere cycle (2005).

Comedy accounted for the lion’s share of broadcast’s top-rated series, lead by the likes of: ABC’s Modern Family (5.5); CBS’s The Big Bang Theory (5.5), Two and a Half Men (5.1) and 2 Broke Girls (4.4); and Fox’s New Girl (4.2). Along with ABC’s 8 p.m. Sunday newcomer Once Upon a Time (4.1), 2BG and New Girl were the breakout success stories of the 2011-12 season.

Beating out all comers in reach and demo deliveries was NBC’s Sunday Night Football. The NFL’s prime time showcase averaged a whopping 20.7 million total viewers and an 8.0 in the demo.

All told, Fox secured its eighth consecutive full-season victory in the demo, averaging a 3.2 rating among adults 18-49, marking a 9 percent decline from a 3.5 in 2010-11. CBS took second place with a 3.0 (up 3 percent), NBC rode the Super Bowl to a bronze medal finish (2.5, up 9 percent) and ABC was down 4 percent to a 2.4 rating.

Strip out the Super Bowl and NBC would have finished with a 1.9 in the demo.

Of the Big Five English-language broadcast nets, only NBC aged down. With a median age of 56 (up from 55 a year ago), CBS remains the greyest network. ABC’s median age went up a tick to 52, NBC dropped to 49 from 50 years, Fox finished at 46 (up from 45) and The CW aged two years to 35.

Ad of the Day: ESPN

Tim Nudd — Fri, 25 May 2012 17:00:12 +0000

Seventeen years after his untimely death from cancer at age 52, it's nice to see TV painter Bob Ross back on television, if briefly, in this amusing new ESPN commercial from Wieden + Kennedy in New York.

Not that Ross's teachings have exactly turned the woman in the spot into Picasso. As evidenced by her creations, which litter the wood-paneled walls, she is very much a work in progress—but she's determined, if nothing else, and thus is hogging the TV with her painting shows. This is where ESPN comes in. Her long-suffering husband, unable to watch his cherished SportsCenter, has discovered, from the comfort of his brown suede recliner, a wondrous invention called WatchESPN—a website that lets him watch ESPN live from his laptop. So, he doesn't need the TV after all.

Wife: "ESPN. Isn't that on TV?" Husband: "Uh, yeah, but you're always taking the TV to watch your painting shows." Wife: "Well, would you rather have all of this amazing art, or be able to watch TV?" Husband (long pause): "The art."

Ross, speaking pleasantly from the TV during the pause, takes the optimistic view. "Maybe there's a happy little cloud floating around," he says. The spot is its own happy little cloud—hilariously envisioned and nicely executed (what's the dog doing at the window?). In lesser hands, it would have had the woman watching a soap opera, or reality TV. It also manages to seem sweet despite being mildly insulting to the woman—a balance W+K strikes quite often in male-targeted ESPN work where it could easily get meatheady. Likewise the use of Ross, which could have seemed mean-spirited but instead feels almost affectionate.

With just a few brushstrokes on the canvas, W+K, like Ross, makes it look easy.

CREDITS
Client: ESPN

AGENCY
Wieden + Kennedy, New York
Creative Directors: Stuart Jennings, Brandon Henderson
Copywriter: Charles Hodges
Art Director: Gary Van Dzura
Producer: Alison Hill
Account Team: Brandon Pracht, Matthew Mauriello, Katie Jensen
Executive Creative Directors: Scott Vitrone, Ian Reichenthal
Agency Executive Producer: Temma Shoaf
Agency Head of Production: Lora Schulson
Agency Strategic Planner: Jason Gingold

PRODUCTION
Production Company: @Radical Media
Director: Steve Miller
Executive Producers: Maya Brewster, Gregg Carlesimo
Line Producer: Barbara Benson
Director of Photography: Eric Schmidt
Production Designer: Brock Houghton

EDITORIAL
Editorial Company: Mackenzie Cutler
Editor: Gavin Cutler
Post Producer: Sasha Hirschfeld
Assistant Editor: Ryan Steele

Telecine/Color Correction
Colorist: Tom Poole
Company: CO3

Post/Visual Effects (VFX)
VFX Company: Jimmy Hayhow
VFX Artist: Schmigital

Online/Conform
Artist: Jimmy Hayhow
Company: Schmigital

MUSIC
Song (if applicable): Ole! (APM Music)

MIX
Mix Company: Heard City
Mixer: Philip Loeb
Producer: Gloria Pitagorsky

Information Diet: Adam Richman

Emma Bazilian — Fri, 25 May 2012 09:08:17 +0000

Specs
Age 37
Accomplishments Host of Travel Channel’s Man v. Food, Man v. Food Nation and the upcoming Adam Richman’s Best Sandwich in America (premieres June 6); author of America the Edible: A Hungry History From Sea to Dining Sea
Base Brooklyn, N.Y.

What’s the first information you consume in the morning?
Because I have a manager and agent on the West Coast, a lot of the time texts will come through at insane hours. So the first thing I do is check all the texts that came in overnight. Then I look at my homepage, which is The New York Times, for a quick info blast.

What occupies your mind in the car, on the subway, train or bus?
Music. Lots and lots of music. I maintain that with good music, you can walk anywhere. Occasionally I’ll do Pandora, but generally speaking, I’m a Spotify or regular iTunes guy. I’ve become addicted to a station I made on Pandora based off the Janelle Monae song “Tightrope.”

Are you a TV junkie or on an airtime-restricted diet?
I’m home so seldom, and when I am home, I’m such a homebody. I like laying low and catching up on my DVR and HBO On Demand with some delivery from Vegetarian Palate in Flatbush. I really like Game of Thrones, The Soup and Shameless, and I randomly end up watching this series on Syfy called Face Off, which is essentially Project Runway with effects makeup.

Before bed, do you bite into a novel, graze on Twitter or fast until morning?
Twitter tends to be an early morning thing for me. Evening-wise, I read about three or four books at a time. I’m a big graphic novel junkie; right now, I’m reading The Walking Dead, DMZ and Scalped. Also, I have to admit, I’m reading the third book in the Tucker Max fratire series, Hilarity Ensues. I know that he’s incredibly divisive, but I cannot remember the last time I was reading something and guffawed out loud out of nowhere.

Give us the skinny on your favorite app.
On my iPad, I have an addiction that borders on Betty Ford-level to FIFA 12. I’m also a big photography buff, so I mess around with photo apps like Camera Plus and Camera Awesome on my iPhone, and buy the in-app purchases willy-nilly.

Do you ever use social media to scout out new restaurants for your shows?
Constantly. For the sandwich show, there were so many places I only discovered because of fans recommending them on Twitter or Facebook. I also like using Urbanspoon, Yelp, foodie blogs, Instagram and college message boards.

What’s your biggest digital indulgence?
Probably just buying each new iPad as they come out! The fact that I still travel with the first gen and the second gen is a little ridiculous. I still have an old tube TV at home, though, so that keeps it real.

With such a bloated media universe, how do you cut out the fat?
It’s really determined by whose opinions you trust and investing in the right sources upfront. Especially now that I’m in the public eye, I think it’s incumbent upon me to stay informed.

Analyst: Auto Hop Flap Much Ado About Nothing

Anthony Crupi — Thu, 24 May 2012 23:46:54 +0000

A week after the broadcast networks warned that they would not tolerate Dish Network’s commercial-blasting technology, Fox, NBC and CBS today separately filed suit to block the service. And while the math suggests that TV’s reaction may be a bit overblown, a successful legal campaign could set a precedent preventing any other operator from issuing its own ad-erasing feature.

In a note to investors, Janney Capital Markets analyst Tony Wible said that while the networks have gone nuclear in their assault on Dish Net, only “1 percent of advertising revenues is at risk, given the viewing patterns and low penetration of the [Auto Hop] technology.”

One reason Wible believes that Auto Hop is all hat and no cattle has to do with viewer consumption patterns. Per Nielsen C3 data, 82 percent of broadcast viewing is done during the same day a show originally airs, whether live or in time-shifted mode. On cable, same-day viewing is even more prevalent (90 percent).

Because Auto Hop does not allow viewers to zap the ads until 1 a.m. the following day, the vast majority of time-shifted content will be seen with the commercials intact. Of course, viewers can simply fast-forward through the spots in their recorded shows, but the Dish service is far more disruptive. When Auto Hop is deployed, the screen goes totally black during the commercial break; after an interval of a few seconds, the program resumes.

From there, it’s all just a numbers game. “The reality is that Dish's 14.1 million subscribers only account for 12 percent of the broadcast homes,” Wible said. “Only 53 percent of Dish subs have DVRs which implies only 6 percent of homes are at risk.”

Of the 115 million TV households in the U.S., only 7.46 million are DVR-owning Dish Network subs. As such, Wible believes the actual exposure to the Big Four “would likely be less than $162 million, or 1.1 percent of broadcast’s total advertising revenues [$14.1 billion].”

Wible suggests that Dish may simply be leveraging the disruptive power of Auto Hop in order to negotiate against rising carriage fees. “While broadcasters will look to increase fees, Dish could now threaten be more aggressive with its ad skipping window by allowing consumers to shift through ads closer to their debut,” he said.

Now that Dish has filed its own lawsuit against the Big Four, petitioning a federal judge to declare that Auto Hop does not violate copyright law, ABC is expected to follow the other three broadcasters’ lead. In a statement released tonight, CBS said that DISH has no authority to monkey around with the ads that run in the network’s content.

“This service takes existing network content and modifies it in a manner that is unauthorized and illegal,” CBS said. “We believe this is a clear violation of copyright law and we intend to stop it.”

The legal wrangling was presaged by comments made by network executives during last week’s upfront presentations. “They can’t just take our signal and change it and put on a black spot where our commercials were,” said CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves on May 16. “How does [Dish Net chief] Charlie Ergen expect me to produce CSI without ads?”

While the Auto Hop scuffle is reminiscent of broadcast’s assault on ReplayTV, that 1999 lawsuit was effectively settled by the bankruptcy of the DVR-maker’s parent company, Sonicblue. As such, while the ReplayTV problem went away, no judicial precedent was ever established re technology-facilitated copyright infringement.

A more recent legal battle, which pitted Cablevision and its network-DVR service against the broadcasters, had more to do with the cable operator’s use of its licensing agreements. Cablevision won the case, a victory that Ergen’s lawyers are likely to point to as precedent in this particular row.

“Consumers should be able to fairly choose for themselves what they do and do not want to watch,” said Dish svp of programming David Shull. “Viewers have been skipping commercials since the advent of the remote control; we are giving them a feature they want and that gives them more control.”

All this wrangling comes as the networks prepare to sell as much as 80 percent of their prime time inventory for the 2012-13 season. Including the CW, broadcast nets are likely to book around $9.3 billion in advance commitments.

Buyers and sellers say they expect the upfront deals will be slow in coming, as budgets are late in arriving.

TV Nets Sue Dish Over Auto Hop

Katy Bachman — Thu, 24 May 2012 21:49:51 +0000

You could see the lawsuits coming the second Dish Network announced Auto Hop, a feature that allows viewers to skip commercials entirely when they play a program back on their DVRs. Fox Broadcasting Co., CBS and NBCUniversal filed separate suits today against the satellite TV service, alleging that Dish violated copyrights and breached retransmission consent agreements.

The TV network suits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the central district of California.

In response, Dish counter sued ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC in the U.S. District Court for the southern district of New York, asking for a declaratory judgment that Auto Hop does not infringe on copyrights and is in agreement with its carriage contracts.

The networks are seeking injunctive relief and compensatory and statutory damages.

"We were given no choice but to file suit against one of our largest distributors, Dish Network, because of their surprising move to market a product with the clear goal of violating copyrights and destroying the fundamental underpinnings of the broadcast television ecosystem. Their wrongheaded decision requires us to take swift action in order to aggressively defent the future of free, over-the-air television," Fox said in a statement.

Fox claims its carriage agreement with Dish does not allow Fox to retransmit in real-time Fox broadcast programming, nor does it allow Dish without a license to make its own copy of programming and distribute a commercial-free version.

CBS is making similar claims. "This service takes existing network content and modifies it in a manner that is unauthorized and illegal. We believe this is a clear violation of copyright law and we intend to stop it," CBS said in a statement.

"Dish simply does not have the authority to tamper with the ads from broadcast replays on a wholesale basis for its economic and commerical advantage," added NBCUniversal in a statement.

Dish argues that consumers should have the choice to zap spots if they want. "Viewers have been skipping commercials since the advent of the remote control; we are giving them a feature they want and that gives them more control," said David Shull, Dish's senior vp of programming.

Coming to Dish's defense, Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C.-based public interest group agreed, slamming the TV networks as technology luddites.

"This is a frontal assault on home recording and fair use," said Gigi Sohn, the president and CEO of Public Knowledge. "Ordinary consumers are in its crosshairs....In filing this suit, Fox and others are challenging long-held consumer rights and going against long-standing consumer practices."

NBCU Exploring Buyback of MSNBC.com

Mike Shields — Thu, 24 May 2012 19:40:01 +0000

Chris Matthews must be getting that tingling feeling down his leg again. He and his colleagues may soon have a giant news site to call their own.

That’s because NBCUniversal is in serious negotiations with Microsoft to buy back MSNBC.com. Several sources with first-hand knowledge of the situation say that negotiations between the two companies have progressed to the stage where NBCU parent company Comcast is conducting its due diligence. They said that the partnership could be unwound by this summer.

Both the MSNBC network and MSNBC.com were launched as a joint venture between NBC and Microsoft in 1996 during the Web’s early emergence as a news vehicle. In 2005, NBC purchased the majority of Microsoft’s stake of MSNBC, which has since morphed into a liberal alternative to Fox News, populated by opinionated hosts like Matthews and Rachel Maddow. Two years later, NBC owned the network outright.

But MSNBC.com has remained a joint venture, while maintaining a distinct personality from the network. While the site is populated with Today Show and NBC News content, it's far more of a general news outlet than its TV counterpart.

As recently as two years ago, there were reports that MSNBC.com would rebrand in order to distinguish itself from the cable net’s left-wing persona. But apparently, under the Comcast reign, the company is more interested in using MSNBC.com to further its network brand. “It drives those guys crazy that they can’t have personalities like Maddow and company on the Web more,” said a source. However, most insiders know that MSNBC.com couldn’t pull in 55.7 million uniques (comScore, April 2012) with Maddow and Matthews alone. The site benefits heavily from its prominent placement on the MSN portal, and that’s something NBCU will be hesitant to give up.

Thus, according to one source, the companies are likely to negotiate a deal ensuring that MSNBC.com secures real estate on MSN.com—similar to the current treatment Fox Sports receives.

It's not clear at the moment what will happen to MSNBC.com's employees. The company has never maintained a large content staff; however, the site's president and CEO, Charlie Tillinghast, is a prominent name in the Web publishing world, having recently served as the chairman of the Online Publishers Association.

Officials from MSNBC.com and NBCU declined to comment.

'American Idol' Sets Social TV Records

Mike Shields — Thu, 24 May 2012 14:44:59 +0000

Back in the old days, i.e., PF&T (pre-Facebook and Twitter), American Idol fans were still social. Yet instead of status updates and tweets, they did what they could with “the technology of those times,” explained Don Wilcox, Fox’s vp and gm of branded entertainment. That is, if you wanted to debate Justin vs. Kelly, you’d log onto message boards on AmericanIdol.com or, shudder, MySpace “before the exodus,” Wilcox joked.

Now, in this social TV era, the aging Idol franchise appears to have pivoted brilliantly. According to the social analytics firm Bluefin Labs, Idol—which wrapped season 11 last night—generated 5,956,134 total social comments, an all-time record in this medium’s short history.

That’s 121 percent better than NBC’s The Voice, which generated 2,698,460 total comments, despite being the newer and arguably far buzzier show this season. During Wednesday's finale, Idol registered 594,469 social mentions per hour.

Of course, Idol also lends itself perfectly to social TV interaction, given its season-long competition and the fact that it airs live. “We’ve always been about giving fans a voice [no pun intended] and cultivating fervor about the show,” said Wilcox. “Last year we really just dipped our toe in social TV, but this year was our first really big push.”

While the show’s high-profile judges and hosts—like Jennifer Lopez and Ryan Seacrest—periodically mention Idol in their social media comments, the big push for social TV presence came from stunts created for the contestants and their rabid fan bases. Rather than just throwing a hashtag up on the screen occasionally, Idol execs looked to capture moments in the show that lent themselves to channel social media activity.

“Our social presence used to be purely digital,” said Wilcox. “This year we used TV to prompt audiences.” For example, during the show, Seacrest periodically urged fans to tweet to #MyIdol to declare their favorite singers, or tweet at #idolbackstage to unlock exclusive content on AmericanIdol.com (once 10,000 fans joined in). “Our intent was to prompt audiences. There were times when we literally clogged up Twitter,” said Wilcox.

While Twitter served as the show’s real-time commenting vehicle, Facebook often took on the role of a gathering place for the show’s 9 million or so viewers.

The show also implemented Facebook’s Open Graph, enabling automatic sharing whenever fans commented or voted on the show. “That really accelerated things,” said Wilcox.

Hang 10: The Year's Most Promising Failed Pilots

Anthony Crupi — Wed, 23 May 2012 23:33:32 +0000

Perhaps no exchange more efficiently lays bare the unsentimental heart of the TV business quite like the back-and-forth between Jules and Vincent at the beginning of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. As the two hit men are on their way to make a collection, Jules reveals that their boss’ wife, Mia Wallace, once starred in a pilot.

Because Vincent’s pop culture appreciation seems to have died out with Mamie Van Doren—“I don’t watch TV,” he says—Jules finds himself defining the term “pilot” for his dopey, dope-addled partner.

“Well, the way they pick TV shows is, they make one show. That show’s called a ‘pilot,’” Jules explains. “Then they show that one show to the people who pick shows, and on the strength of that one show they decide if they want to make more shows. Some get chosen and become television programs. Some don’t, become nothing. She starred in one of the ones that became nothing.”

This year, another 53 pilots joined Mia Wallace’s doomed Fox Force Five in the dustbin of TV history, a roster that includes a number of high-profile flameouts. What follows is a list of some of the more promising concepts that won’t be appearing on a TV set near you this fall.

Downwardly Mobile, NBC (Twentieth Century Fox Television)

Roseanne Barr

A multicamera family comedy starring Roseanne Barr as the soulful, sassy proprietor of a trailer park, this comeback attempt would have reunited Barr and John Goodman for the first time since 1997. Unfortunately for fans of Roseanne—and there were an awful lot of them; at its peak, the show averaged 21.5 million households—test audiences did not respond well to Downwardly Mobile’s brassy blue-collar comedic sensibility.

Super Fun Night, CBS (Warner Bros. Television)

Rebel Wilson

Conan O’Brien was an executive producer on this loopy comedy starring Bridesmaids scenery chewer Rebel Wilson. The Aussie comic wrote and created this multicamera sitcom about three girlfriends who dedicate their Friday nights to the never-ending pursuit of a “funcomfortable” good time. Jenny Slate of SNL/Marcel the Shell fame was set to play one of the female leads. (While CBS passed on the show, Warner Bros. is shopping Super Fun Night elsewhere, with an eye toward earning a spot on a basic-cable network.)

The Manzanis, ABC (ABC Studios)

Kirstie Alley

Yet another multicamera comedy, the script for this shrill sendup about a squabbling family that disrupts a quiet, WASPy New Jersey neighborhood reads like a primer on the most offensive Italian-American stereotypes. Former Cheers co-stars Kirstie Alley and Rhea Perlman were set to headline, and while poor testing put the kibosh on any hope of a series pickup, at least one Twitter account is trying to convince ABC to change its mind.

Susan 313, NBC (Twentieth Century Fox Television)

Sarah Silverman

Sarah Silverman wrote, starred and served as co-executive producer on this apparently autobiographical single-camera comedy about a woman struggling to return to her old life after a particularly tough breakup. The pilot was backed by serious muscle (Brian Grazer and Ron Howard), and Silverman is a popular stand-up comedian and performer. Still, her sensibility is rather raunchy for prime time—Silverman has made a cottage industry out of vagina jokes, so much so that Whitney Cummings should cut her a hefty royalty check—and the networks also tend to steer clear of comics who traffic in political material. Ultimately, the decision to pass on Susan 313 simply may have come down to NBC reversing course on its female-centric comedy strategy. After premiering Whitney; Up All Night; Bent; Are You There, Chelsea?; and Best Friends Forever in 2011-12, NBC elected to go with a broad slate of family comedies (Men With Kids, The New Normal), workplace sitcoms (Animal Practice, Next Caller) and the Matthew Perry comeback vehicle, Go On.

Friday Night Dinner, NBC (NBC Universal Television)

Allison Janney

Based on a popular U.K. series, Friday Night Dinner was to have paired off the great Allison Janney and Tony Shalhoub as the parents of two unmarried adult sons who come home for Shabbat dinner every Friday. The homegrown adaptation was executive produced by Greg Daniels (The Office). Despite unspectacular testing, Friday Night Dinner is said to have been in contention for a series pickup until just before the network’s May 14 upfront presentation.

The Flintstones, Fox (Twentieth Century Fox Television)

Seth McFarlane and The Flintstones

Announced during last year’s upfront show, Seth MacFarlane’s reboot of the classic “modern Stone-Age family” cartoon appears to have been put on ice, indefinitely. The Flintstones would have been the Family Guy creator’s fourth animated series on Fox, but network entertainment president Kevin Reilly wasn’t blown away by MacFarlane’s first draft. Rather than knock out another script, MacFarlane elected to give up on the project altogether. Good news for Flintstones purists who greeted news of the remake with a hearty “Yabba Dabba Don’t!”

Untitled Louis C.K./Spike Feresten Project, CBS (CBS Television Studios)

Louie C.K.

As fans of his FX series Louie can attest, Louis C.K. is the smartest, darkest comedian alive, a T-shirt-clad existentialist who has more bracing insights about capital-D Death than Woody Allen and Norm MacDonald combined, yet can evoke a sense of hard-won joy with a simple dick joke. Every year he tosses out his material to start from scratch, and while this act of forced renewal carries a whiff of fanaticism, damn it if he doesn’t pull it off. He’s also figured out the digital-distribution conundrum, raking in some $1.1 million on $5 downloads of his 2011 comedy special, Live at the Beacon Theater. How anyone thought Louis C.K. would find a home on broadcast TV (and on CBS, no less, home to lowest common denominator fare like Two and a Half Men and 2 Broke Girls) remains a puzzle for the ages, but this pilot never really had much of a shot.

Living Loaded, Fox (FX Productions)

Charlie Day

Based on a book by booze columnist Dan Dunn, Living Loaded was executive produced by the three creators of the FX comedy It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day and Glenn Howerton. This single-camera comedy about a bibulous blogger (the character literally drinks for a living) who tries to clean up his act so he can co-host a radio show at his father’s NPR affiliate would have starred Mike Vogel and Donald Sutherland. Fox instead elected to go with the female-targeted Mindy Project, which will be paired with New Girl, and the family comedy Ben & Kate. Incidentally, this was the second broadcast pilot the Always Sunny trio worked on together; in 2009, Fox shot down their outer-space comedy Boldly Going Nowhere.

Devious Maids, ABC (ABC Studios)

Eva Longoria

A sudsy drama series based on the Televisa telenovela format The Disorderly Maids of the Neighborhood, this was to have been Marc Cherry’s successor to ABC linchpin Desperate Housewives. ABC cooled on the project after screening the pilot, and some observers said Devious Maids’ chances weren’t helped by the timing of the Nicollette Sheridan court case. (The selection process coincided with Sheridan’s testimony in her $20 million lawsuit against Cherry for assault and wrongful termination.) Thus far, Cherry pilots are batting .000; while Desperate Housewives earned him a long-term development deal with ABC, the network also passed on his 2011 pilot, Hallelujah.

Rebounding, Fox (Twentieth Century Fox Television)

Will Forte

A late spec script buy starring Will Forte as a guy recovering from the death of his fiancée with the support of his basketball buddies, Rebounding was hampered by a very tricky premise. (Dead fiancées are comedy killers.) Sure, the opportunity to watch Forte in a lead would have been tremendous—he even made the anvil-headed feature film MacGruber somewhat watchable, and he’s long been the funniest guest character on 30 Rock—but even with Modern Family’s Steven Levitan aboard as an executive producer, the script was a little light on laughs. Still, the pilot tested through the roof (Forte earned particularly high marks) and Rebounding had a shot at a series pickup right up until the week before Fox’s May 14 upfront presentation. Ultimately, the network decided to commit to the aforementioned live-action comedies Ben & Kate and The Mindy Project.

Viacom Raises Dividend 10%, Less Than Predicted

Sam Thielman — Wed, 23 May 2012 21:34:11 +0000

Viacom has increased its shareholder dividend to 27.5 cents, up 10 percent. The increase takes place starting with Viacom's next quarterly dividend, payable July 2.

The media conglomerate has driven up the share price in recent months as its stock buy-back program continues apace. Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said in a statement that "consistently strong cash flows and a solid balance sheet" contributed to the decision to bump up the dividend; part of that may have to do with the company's resolution of an ongoing dispute with New York-based cable giant Time Warner Cable.

Last week, the two companies issued a joint statement saying that they had privately settled the legal fight over who had the rights to stream Viacom content like shows from Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and MTV on the iPad. "Neither side is conceding its original legal position or will have further comment," the statement said, but with the deadlock broken, verified Time Warner customers have access to plenty of Viacom content.

Still, the increase was smaller than some analysts had predicted (analysts at financial news outlet Bloomberg predicted a bump up to 30 cents).

MSOs like Time Warner have featured prominently in Viacom's current business successes—the company's first-quarter earnings report proclaimed a 56 percent boost to $585 million, and much of the increase was due to a 15 percent spike in affiliate fees payed by satellite and cable operators like Time Warner. Ad sales increased 1 percent (likely due to continuing sluggishness at Nickeolodeon), and the coming upfront season is likely to help Viacom pick some but not all of the slack in that area—Comedy Central is predicted by SNL Kagan to get a 6.2 percent increase in ad revenue, with a 5.9 percent uptick prognoticated for MTV.