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denverpost.com — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:55:23 +0000

Seinfeld on ‘30 Rock’

Joanne Ostrow — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 19:56:28 +0000

[photopress:NUP_109595_0827.jpg,thumb,pp_image]Jerry Seinfeld appears on Thursday’s typically sharp season premiere of “30 Rock.” He signed on partly as a favor to his pal Tina Fey and partly to promote his “Bee Movie,” out next month. NBC offered a transcript of a canned, inhouse interview with the man who once powered the network to ratings heights.

Okay, we’ll bite. Here’s his answer to a question about plugging his movie:
JERRY SEINFELD: It really had nothing to do with “Bee
Movie.” And they put it in the script. I really didn’t
ask them to. But everybody thought it was funny, so we
are doing it… It was just supposed to be on NBC.
And NBC is promoting the movie. And I’m doing some
interstitial comedy vignettes for them that I call TV
juniors, little one-minute long comedy pieces. But this
was, like, a separate thing. But it turned out that
they came up with this very funny idea of Jack Doneghy
coming up with SeinfeldVision, and they would put
me digitally in all these NBC shows. It was funny.

What, they thought we’d put that in the real newspaper?

‘Bionic’ breakout

Joanne Ostrow — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 16:28:40 +0000

[photopress:NUP_105443_0198.jpg,thumb,pp_image]Amid the crush of newcomers, the ratings standout was NBC’s “Bionic Woman,” which had the best premiere ratings the network’s seen in eight years, since “The West Wing.” The “Bionic” remake beat ABC’s “Private Practice,” which was a strong No. 2, suggesting there’s a big enough Wednesday night audience for both shows to do well.

Recount on ‘The War’

Joanne Ostrow — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 17:46:13 +0000

PBS trumpeted a huge win for Ken Burns’ “The War,” claiming an “estimated gross audience” of 18.7 million viewers for two airings of the two-hour debut. In fact, that’s if you count anyone in certain major markets who caught six minutes’ worth. The way the other networks keep score is by measuring the average number of viewers at any given moment. That comes out to 7.3 million viewers. Very good for PBS, but not record-shattering.

This debate about the ratings yardstick is not new. The same discrepancy arose a few weeks ago when Univision claimed its telecast of a Democratic candidate forum drew 4.6 million viewers, making it the most-watched presidential debate so far. In fact, that was by the anyone-who-caught-six-minutes yardstick. The average total-viewer figure was 2.1 million.

‘Mad Men’ gets second season

Joanne Ostrow — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 17:47:07 +0000

AMC today confirmed its critical hit “Mad Men,” about philandering, hard-drinking and ever-smoking advertising executives in 1960, pre-feminism, will return for a second season. The first 13 episodes were not just the highpoint of summer TV viewing, but a highlight of television in general.

The first season finale is Oct. 18.