Free Republic

Broadcast-TV ratings may again be on the decline — as they have been since… well, for a while! — but that does not mean ABC, CBS et al are about to close up shop and leave your Zenith with nothing but test patterns. And here is the important reason why. Money. “But,” you argue, “ratings are down! You typed it right up above! I see it with my own eyes!” And the short retort to that is: Remember what your high school economics teacher told you about supply and demand…. The longer answer, for those interested enough to stick around:...

It's a widely accepted piece of TV ratings dogma that same-day numbers represent a starting point, not the complete picture for a given show. What's also true, however, is that in 2018-19, the starting point for nearly every returning broadcast series retreated from the previous season. In fact, only 10 percent (10 of 102) of veteran series increased or held steady with their same-day adults 18-49 rating from the 2017-18 season. The Hollywood Reporter's comparison includes same-day ratings for all original episodes of series that aired more than one episode in the 2018-19 season, including those coded as specials. Only...

In Hollywood’s latest attempt to pander to their ultra-liberal base, Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright will be appearing in an episode of CBS’s fifth season of the politically-driven drama "Madam Secretary." The show follows Elizabeth McCord, played by Téa Leoni, “the shrewd, determined Secretary of State who drives international diplomacy, battles office politics and circumvents protocol as she negotiates global and domestic issues, both at the White House and at home.” In the episode where Clinton and Albright, playing themselves, will join the cast, McCord is handling a particularly stick international issue. “In the episode, Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord,...

CBS has shelled out a big pilot production commitment to Magnum P.I., an update of the classic 1980s Tom Selleck series set in Hawaii. It hails from Peter Lenkov, CBS/CBS Studios’ go-to writer for rebooting iconic procedurals who has successfully revived Hawaii Five-0 and MacGyver, and Davis Entertainment (The Blacklist). Co-written by Lenkov and fellow Hawaii Five-0 executive producer/showrunner Eric Guggenheim, Magnum P.I. will feature the same central quartet of characters but, instead of four guys, it will consist of three men and a woman, with Higgins (played by John Hillerman) reconceived as Juliet Higgins. CBS/CBS Studios took a similar...

This is the worst fall for new TV shows in the decade I’ve been a professional TV critic. And it’s hard to find one much worse in all the years I’ve been cognizant of “new fall TV” as a concept, since the late ’80s. The comedies didn’t make me laugh. The dramas made me roll my eyes. Even with the boom in platforms making new TV, there’s but one show I’d recommend wholeheartedly and a smattering of others that made me say, “There could be something there if they work out the kinks.” The vast, vast majority of the new...

For more than 60 years, TV stations have broadcast news, sports and entertainment for free and made their money by showing commercials. That might not work much longer. The business model is unraveling at ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox and the local stations that carry the networks' programming. Cable TV and the Web have fractured the audience for free TV and siphoned its ad dollars. The recession has squeezed advertising further, forcing broadcasters to accelerate their push for new revenue to pay for programming. That will play out in living rooms across the country. The changes could mean higher cable...

<p>There’s nothing like success to breed copycats, sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs. The box office bonanza Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ earned in 2004 turned a lot of heads in Hollywood, and industry insiders predicted a spate of religiously themed movies and TV shows would quickly follow. As Hollywood agent John Lesher put it at the time, “People here will work with the Antichrist if he’ll put butts in seats.”</p>