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Reacting to pressure from Christian groups, NBC canceled an episode of "Will & Grace" that featured Britney Spears as a conservative who hosts a cooking segment called "Cruci-fixin's" on a Christian TV network. NBC last week was forced to pull its highly touted new show "The Book of Daniel" because of charges its portrayal of Jesus was blasphemous Spears was to appear as a sidekick to the regular character Jack, who hosts his own talk show on the homosexual network Out TV, which is bought by a Christian TV network. The episode was to air April 13, just before Good...

The Blog of Daniel: Goodbye, Farewell, Amen by Jack Kenny, series creator, The Book of Daniel As this is probably my last bully pulpit for the show, I want to take this opportunity to thank all the thousands of people on boards, blogs and websites across the Internet who've shown such wonderful, loving support for The Book of Daniel. Love. Support. Tolerance. Acceptance. Forgiveness. Those are the Christian values that I was brought up with, and the values that I tried to bring into the world of Daniel. It's late now. I've just spent tonight with Susanna Thompson (Judith), Ivan...

- A conservative advocacy group is taking some of the credit for NBC's decision to cancel its new television series, "The Book of Daniel." The American Family Association (AFA) called for a boycott of the "anti-Christian program," even before the first episode aired. In a message to its supporters on Tuesday, the AFA welcomed news that the program has been canceled. "Your efforts, combined with those of hundreds of thousands of other AFA Online supporters, had an impact." NBC said it dropped the Friday night show three weeks after the first episode aired because of low ratings.

NBC's anti-Christian program The Book of Daniel has been cancelled! Your efforts, combined with those of hundreds of thousands of other AFA Online supporters, had an impact. NBC's decision to pull The Book of Daniel shows the power of the pocketbook. NBC didn't want to eat their economic losses. Had NBC not had to eat millions of dollars each time it aired, NBC would have kept The Book of Daniel on the air. Because of your efforts, the sponsors dropped the program. NBC then decided it didn't want to continue the fight. Even an impassioned plea by Daniel's producer Jack...

LOS ANGELES - The last chapter of the controversial religious drama "The Book of Daniel" has been written at NBC. Although the network stopped short of saying the low-rated show was canceled, a spokeswoman said Tuesday it has been dropped from the schedule.

Because of your efforts, NBC cancels 'Book of Daniel' Dear (just received this through e-mail), NBC's anti-Christian program The Book of Daniel has been cancelled! Your efforts, combined with those of hundreds of thousands of other AFA Online supporters, had an impact. NBC's decision to pull The Book of Daniel shows the power of the pocketbook. NBC didn't want to eat their economic losses. Had NBC not had to eat millions of dollars each time it aired, NBC would have kept The Book of Daniel on the air. Because of your efforts, the sponsors dropped the program. NBC then decided...

A television network tried to tackle religion once again, with the same old results. NBC's controversial program, "The Book of Daniel", about an Episcopal priest named Daniel Webster who is a pill-popper with a drunken wife, drug dealing daughter, gay Republican son, and bisexual aunt, has been canceled. You just can't make a show about "Any family USA" these days, can you? Once again, middle America gets a slap in the face. Jesus was also a recurring character on the program. It's really too bad that the program was canceled before NBC could produce the obligatory "tonight, on a very...

NEW YORK -- A martini-sipping wife, a pot-peddling daughter, a gay son mourning his twin's death, an aging mother battling Alzheimer's disease--and his own habit of popping painkillers and literally seeing Jesus. Daniel Webster, a beleaguered Episcopal priest, clearly has issues. And the American Family Association definitely has issues with him. The Tupelo, Miss.-based Christian family advocacy group unleashed an e-mail protest blitz, mobilizing its 3 million members effectively to try to defrock the fictional Webster and get his new "anti-Christian" television series, "The Book of Daniel," excommunicated from the NBC schedule.

It’s been a bad fortnight for biblical Christianity in the world of popular entertainment. To begin with, NBC has launched The Book of Daniel, a situation comedy about a pill-popping Episcopalian priest. Troubles surround him: one son is homosexual and another is sleeping with the bishop’s daughter. His daughter gets arrested for dealing drugs. A sister-in-law has become a lesbian. Through all difficulties, Daniel (the priest) is sustained by conversation with a smarmy character who is supposed to be Jesus. This “Jesus” gushes inclusivism and spouts wisecracks (“you can quote me”). He is a paragon of liberal (or postliberal) nonjudgmentalism....

NBC'S "THE BOOK OF DANIEL" may be off the air soon--more because of Nielsen issues than sins against a higher power. Ratings for the controversial drama dropped 23 percent Friday among adults 18-49 versus its Jan. 6 premiere. With a 2.2 mark, the show lost 36 percent of its "Dateline" lead-in. (Viewers declined by two million, or 29 percent, compared to the week before.) A call to NBC on Monday was not returned; the network's Web site says the show is scheduled to air this Friday. The drama about a liberal Episcopalian priest who pops pills and has a gay...

From the network that brought you "Supertrain" and "Manimal" comes "The Book of Daniel," a midterm replacement show that has only just started airing but has stirred up controversy. The show stars Aidan Quinn as Rev. Daniel Webster, an Episcopalian priest trying to juggle job, family, and, oh, the ability to see and talk to Jesus. Throw in a wife that likes to drink, a gay son, a teen-aged daughter, and an adopted son from China who is a stud jock, and what do you have? Another reason I don't watch television that much. With very few exceptions, I don't...

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Jack Bauer‘s latest marathon workday got off to a good start Sunday, ratings-wise. The Fox drama "24" notched its most-watched episode ever with its fifth-season premiere as the first of two back-to-back episodes got a boost from a primetime overrun (in East Coast and Midwestern markets) of the NFL‘s NFC divisional playoff game between the Carolina Panthers and Chicago Bears. Airing from about 8:13-9:11 p.m. EST, the first episode of "24" averaged 17 million viewers and a 7.3 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic (demographic share data for Sunday were not available Monday because of...

The Book of Daniel was aired by NBC on Friday night. Several NBC affiliates did not carry the program including those in Beaumont, TX; Tupelo, MS; Meridian, MS, Little Rock, AR; and Terre Haute, IN. In addition, NBC lost several million dollars when advertisers pulled out. NBC ended up selling the time for pennies on the dollar. WBIR in Knoxville invited ministers in to see the program. Here are some of their comments. Rev. Brian Kearns, minister of Lighthouse Christian Church: “I think it’s very demeaning to Christianity. If this is their view of Christianity, it’s going to be as...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - NBC's Nashville affiliate has closed "The Book of Daniel" after the show, whose main character is a pill-popping Episcopal priest with a gay son and a pot-dealing daughter, drew thousands of complaints. WSMV-TV General Manager Elden Hale Jr. said he decided to pull the show starring Aidan Quinn after NBC rejected the station's request to air it overnight instead of during "family viewing time." Despite its third-place finish nationally, the show won its time slot last Friday in the Nashville TV market. Hale said viewers objected to the language, the sexual content and the portrayal of Jesus,...

The Hollywood moguls who gave us The Book of Daniel (NBC, Fridays, 9:00 ET) probably think they are presenting Christianity in a positive light. Church people are not freaks. They are just like everybody else, having the same values and problems as the Hollywood moguls. The Book of Daniel is about an Episcopal priest named Daniel Webster. He is addicted to pain pills. His daughter sells drugs. One son is gay. The other is promiscuous with women. His supervisor, a female bishop, is having an affair with his father, who is also a bishop cheating on his Alzheimer's-afflicted wife. He...

It's no secret NBC has become a laughing stock of the airwaves, and "The Book of Daniel" is just one more reason to shamelessly snicker. The one-hour Friday night show, which airs at 10 p.m., is the floundering network's attempt to compete with "Desperate Housewives" and other deviously clever dramas that have surfaced over the last couple of seasons. However, "Daniel" is one book that needs to be shredded after watching last Friday's two-hour premiere. (The show debuted poorly, attracting 9 million viewers, to finish third in its network slot, according to Nielsen Media Research.) It's sad, really, that creator...

Three of the five national advertisers that had commercials run during the debut airing of NBC's controversial "Book of Daniel" will no longer advertise on the program, states the organization leading the protest against the show. According to the American Family Association, just five advertisers ran spots during the program's two-hour premier on Friday night – and at least one of those got bargain-basement rates for the commercials the day before. "Three of the five companies whose ads placed on the show said they would refrain from future episodes," said a statement from AFA. "Chattem (Gold Bond, Icy Hot), Combe...

NBC is promoting the network's mid-season replacement series "The Book of Daniel" with language that implies it is a serious drama about Christian people and Christian faith. Network hype – and the mainstream media – call it "edgy," "challenging" and "courageous." But one look at the characters will likely give you a distinctly different impression. The main character is Daniel Webster, a drug-addicted Episcopal priest whose wife depends heavily on her mid-day martinis. The Webster family is rounded out by a 23-year-old homosexual Republican son, a 16-year-old daughter who is a drug dealer, and a 16-year-old adopted son who is...

ONE of the few advertisers that bought commercial time during the premiere last week of "The Book of Daniel" on NBC will not be back. The series, about a priest, was singled out before its debut by a conservative activist organization, the American Family Association, which condemned it as anti-Christian. The advertiser is Combe Inc., a company in White Plains that sells personal care products, which bought a 30-second commercial for Just for Men hair coloring. It was one of only about two dozen national spots that ran during the two-hour back-to-back episodes that composed the premiere of "The Book...