The web confirmed late Monday it is in advanced talks with its affils to give up five hours of network time, 5-10 p.m., on Sunday, which has long been a weak spot for CW and its WB Network predecessor. CW said it decided to make the move in order to focus all of its programming resources on its Monday-Friday slate.

CW said backing out of Sunday entirely would be good for the network as well as for its affils. The low Sunday numbers drag down the net's weekly and season-long ratings averages, while affils are stuck with being off the primetime radar on the night and saddled with a weak lead-in to late newscasts. Although local TV advertising sales have been hard hit by the economic downturn, stations would still rather have more control over the Sunday program lineup and the ability to keep more of the advertising time rather than be saddled with low-rated network fare.

It's understood that most CW affils are in the process of cutting deals for an expansive movie package from MGM on a barter advertising basis. That means stations pay no money upfront and will be able to hang onto as much as six to eight minutes of the 14-15 minutes of ad time in each hour, compared with three minutes of time in the network-supplied movie. And the titles in the package for the upcoming season are said to be a higher caliber of pics than the titles CW has been supplying affils.

In a statement, CW said the Sunday shuffle "would provide a new revenue opportunity for the stations, while at the same time expand upon our successful weekday strategy from this year, which resulted in ratings growth among our target audience."

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Twilight, Slumdog Millionaire Lead MTV Movie Award Nominees

The nominations for the 2009 MTV Movie Awards have been announced. Twilight is up for the most nominations with seven. The seven nominations include nominations for cast members Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. Slumdog Millionaire has six nominations. Heath Ledger is up for "Best Villain" for his Oscar-winning Joker performance.

The nominee that will probably get the most attention is Angelia Jolie's nomination for Best Kiss. Angelina Jolie is up for Best Kiss for a kissing scene with James McAvoy in Wanted.

(via Us)

Posted on May 4, 2009
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Amanda Bynes is Canned

Amanda Bynes is starring in a new ABC comedy pilot called Canned, in which Amanda plays a naive midwesterner who is taken advantage of by her boss.

"Canned" revolves around a group of friends who are all fired on the same day. Kevin Etten created the show and exec produces, while David Rosenthal and Peter Traugott are also EPs.

*****

She joins a cast that also includes Tim Peper, Stephanie Lemelin and Baron Vaughn.

We like Amanda Bynes: she's very funny. It will be interesting to see how many more workplace comedies network audiences are in the mood for.

Posted on March 23, 2009
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A Major Death on Lost is Coming

Kristin de los Santos of E! says that there will be a major death coming on Lost. And Kristin is never wrong. She won't say who it is, of course, other than it's not Kate.

Here's what I can tell you about this death:

* A current series regular is getting killed before the end of season five.
* The character who will die is someone who is much-loved by many of you fans.
* This is a real leaving-the-show death, à la Shannon or Charlie, not a quick-fix time-travel death like Jeremy Bentham/John Locke.
* The character getting killed off is not, I repeat, not Evie's character Kate Austen.

And a source close to the show tells me that the person who's being killed off just learned of their character's fate late last week, and the news hit hard. "Unfortunately, [he or she] found out after the script treatments were sent out to some of the crew on the set," says my source. "So it wasn't the best timing."

We have no idea who it is, but Lost is so amazingly good this season we really don't want anyone else to be killed off.

Posted on March 11, 2009
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Dancing With the Stars Ratings Hold Steady

Dancing With the Stars was a ratings hit for ABC last night.

One week after the rejuvenated "The Bachelor" franchise wrapped its highest-rated season in years, the net's "Dancing With the Stars" -- with an assist from "The Bachelor" -- opened surprisingly well.

Now in its eighth edition and lacking any real big-name stars this time around, "Dancing" nonetheless bowed with its second best premiere demo rating to date (6.1 rating/15 share in 18-49) while drawing its largest overall aud for a premiere (22.83 million), according to Nielsen.

Though Fox's "American Idol" draws stronger demo ratings than "Dancing," the hoofing hit's overall premiere aud wasn't too far behind what "Idol" averaged last week. And excluding the Oscars, it's the Alphabet's most-watched telecast in 16 months.

Interest in "Dancing" may have been heightened due to late cast changes, as auds were curious to see who would replace Jewel and Nancy O'Dell, both of whom were sidelined with dancing-prep injuries. In a bit of casting genius, "Dancing" was able to recruit recently jilted "Bachelor" contestant Melissa Rycroft as a substitute.

Reality TV continues to be a money maker for ABC.

Posted on March 10, 2009
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Super Bowl Was Most Watched Ever



Nielsen Media Research says the Super Bowl on NBC delivered an average of 98.7 million total viewers. This made Super Bowl 43 the most-watched Super Bowl ever. It's also the No. 2 telecast of all time, trailing only the 1983 MASH finale, which had 106 million viewers.

Nielsen had released some numbers earlier that were slightly lower but the L.A. Times says these were just preliminary numbers.

Nielsen's Monday numbers were actually preliminary results, called "fast nationals" in ratings lingo. These early statistics are always subject to further review and indeed often rise after Nielsen considers additional data. But the size of the discrepancy in this case, more than 3%, took some observers by surprise.

Posted on February 3, 2009
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