Your move: You don't want to watch ads on broadcast TV shows, so you record the shows to watch later, and zip through the commercials. Network countermove: Inject more giant type and bold graphics into the ads, so you can read (and get) the message even as you fast-forward. But now, the networks have gotten even more insidious, and are stuffing ads where you CAN'T miss them...

2011

Jan

MTV'S 'SKINS': SMART, SENSITIVE AND SWEET? By Ed Martin

Why the uproar over MTV's Skins? Could it be that there is so little else to get excited about, during the opening weeks of what is shaping up to be a curiously dead midseason? Had we become that dependent on Lost and 24 to bring us back to life after a long holiday break?...

2011

Jan

WEIRD & WILD: TRICKED OUT TOILET SEATS! By Diane Werts

Forget free magazines, then. DIY Network is getting to the bottom of life itself. "In support of Toilet Bowl IV, DIY Network's companion website, DIYNetwork.com, is giving away 30 tricked-out toilet seats to readers of their blog starting Thursday, Jan. 27." I mean, really. Where to begin?

2011

Jan

FREEBIE: CBS GOES GLOSSY By Diane Werts

Yes, it's published by CBS, and yes, it's largely one big ad for that network. But hey, it's free -- for now. So why not sign up for "watch!" magazine?...

2011

Jan

ANIMATED 'ARCHER' GETS AWAY WITH JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING By Ed Bark

The cartoon teen in Archer's Season 2 opener Thursday night can do what none of MTV's can -- get naked and be sexually explicit without raising concerns that these might be violations of federal pornography statutes...

2011

Jan

CABLE BABIES: THE NEXT GENERATION By Mike Donovan

Many years ago, I wrote an article called "Invasion of the Cable Babies" for a broadcast promotion directors' publication, triggered by my discovery that I was beginning to get students in my TV classes who had cable TV their entire lives. They made no distinction between broadcast and cable. To them, television always meant 50-plus channels, and NBC and USA were just two of the many channels. And today, there's yet another generational viewing shift...

2011

Jan

OPRAH, LARRY, REGIS... MY TAKE ON THE 'BIG 3' LEAVING THEIR RESPECTIVE TV SHOWS By David Bianculli

At my advanced age, I've made a Eureka! discovery. It's a lot easier to be interviewed for a story than to write one. So thanks, David Bauder of the Associated Press, for including me in your story about the latest seismic shift in TV's talk landscape. Now, instead of writing a full column about it, I can just steer you...

2011

Jan

LOOK WHO'S TALKING, AND TO WHOM, ON TV... OR DON'T... By David Bianculli

Last week, especially last Monday, Piers Morgan enjoyed a lot of media attention as the new talk-show host replacing CNN's Larry King. This week, he can expect a lot less attention, just as the hosts of Oprah Winfrey's OWN network have seen the media spotlight shift away from them since launching at the start of the New Year. And Conan O'Brien -- what have you heard of him, really, since the first days of his TBS relaunch?...

2011

Jan

MAYHEM, DEATH AND FLO By Eric Gould

Even the most popular characters on weekly shows don't get the saturation some recurring advertising characters get on a daily basis. If exposure equals success, then they are huge. My current favorite, Allstate's dark angel "Mayhem," is on every night, pretty much hourly. He's serious, menacing and sometimes gleeful as he orchestrates destruction...

2011

Jan

OLBERMANN OUT AND ABOUT AGAIN By Ed Bark

Although he's made himself toxic wherever he's worked, CNN probably would be wise to make itself the next waystop in Keith Olbermann's checkered career. The slot currently occupied by the network's failed and flailing Parker Spitzer would be perfect for the oft-bombastic Olbermann, who could resume competing against The O'Reilly Factor and now Lawrence O'Donnell in MSNBC's 8 p.m. ET hour...

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