Free Republic

If there was any doubt surrounding Megyn Kelly’s success when she returned from maternity leave, her performance so far this week has put all the haters to shame! On her premiere night, Megyn had Senator Ted Cruz as a guest and did great in ratings. But what’s even more impressive is how she did even better in the ratings on her second night doing the show. In her second night on Fox News’ new primetime lineup, Megyn Kelly clocked the highest adults 25-54 rating across all of cable news, building on her Bill O’Reilly lead-in. Kelly averaged 623,000 demo viewers...

On Saturday, during the pre-Hall of Fame induction show on the NFL Network, Deion Sanders took time to address the media feeding frenzy surrounding Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Riley Cooper's use of the N-word. In so doing, he pulled no punches in saying he is bothered that "African Americans can say the N-word to one another"--that they do so in the locker room and in rap songs--yet they jump all over "a kid who made a mistake" in using the word. Excerpt

I have to admit, I have never watched Two and a Half Men, and never will. I hate sitcoms. I’ve tried to watch other ones and found them to be rather unfunny; as a Christian myself I find the content worldly, over-sexualized and very distasteful, as are most programs on TV. But as an actor on the program, was Jones wrong for speaking out against it?

Maybe not. The Parents Television Council (PTC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating parents about television content, has released a new study looking at nudity on prime-time broadcast television which reveals a major increase over the 2011-2012 season.   The study found that there were 76 incidents of full nudity on 37 shows compared to 15 incidents in 14 shows the previous ratings season, representing a 407 percent rise in incidents. Almost 70 percent of the scenes that featured such nudity were on shows which aired prior to 9pm, compared to 50 percent of the full nudity scenes which aired before...

In March and April, MSNBC’s primetime hosts ran with nearly wall-to-wall coverage of the killing of Florida teen Trayvon Martin. They regularly suggested that the lack of national interest in the case was worthy of outrage. Last week, when an avalanche of new evidence favorable to George Zimmerman came to light, MSNBC’s primetime lineup didn’t just bury the story, they didn’t mention Martin or Zimmerman once the week that news broke according to media monitoring service TV Eyes. On May 15, ABC’s World News broke new information that showed a more nuanced picture

President Obama has endured entertainment industry criticism over the last few years for requesting premium broadcast air time for making speeches. But Sunday night’s abrupt and unexpected interruption is unlikely to draw any complaints. Multiple news organizations are reporting that the White House is set to announce that, at last, Osama bin Laden is dead. ABC, CBS and NBC have cut away from scheduled programming to cover this enormous news. With all the back and forth between President Obama and Donald Trump in recent weeks, Twitter flared up with amused conspiracy theories when NBC News cut away from Trump’s Celebrity...

(HOLLYWOOD REPORTER) — We'll name a hit TV show, and you guess if it's more popular among Republicans or Democrats. First, "NCIS" — investigating military crimes on CBS. Safe bet conservatives love it, right? How about ABC's "Desperate Housewives" — a racy soap, female audience? Little more tricky. Now things get tough: CBS's geeky, atheist-friendly "The Big Bang Theory," Fox's megarated "American Idol," ABC's progressive Emmy winner "Modern Family." Which of these shows is favored more by Republicans? All of them. According to months of data from leading media-research company Experian Simmons, viewers who vote Republican and identify themselves as...

The Reign of Right-Wing Primetime Moreover, if you're a liberal viewer in a major city (which typically correlates with higher education) and you have such titles as "Mad Men" and "Dexter" to watch each week, are you going to also be interested in seeing a paint-by-numbers crime procedural on broadcast or a laugh-track-boosted sitcom? On the scripted side, at least, the explosion of complex dramas on cable may have ceded some of the broadcast ground to what one might label Republican tastes.

Oprah Winfrey, the ‘queen’ of American TV, has offered the cash-strapped Duchess of York her own prime-time chat show. Billionaire Oprah, 56, is launching her own cable channel, the Oprah Winfrey Network, next January, and last week called the scandal-hit Duchess to offer her a deal. A source close to Sarah Ferguson said last night: ‘Oprah made the call this week. They spoke in person and, for Sarah, the offer is a ray of light at the end of a very dark tunnel. ‘Oprah has known Sarah for some time and the Duchess went on Oprah’s show to explain herself...

CNN announced Thursday that John King, the Sunday morning host best known for his magic wall, is taking over the 7 p.m. slot left vacant by the abrupt resignation of Lou Dobbs. The decision, described by network sources, amounts to a doubling down on straight news. King, a former Associated Press writer, is known for his reporting and neutral approach to politics, while Dobbs has grown increasingly opinionated in recent years, especially on such issues as his opposition to illegal immigration. "The program will reflect what CNN is all about: the widest range of opinions from across the political spectrum,"...

If the networks don’t carry it, they ought to be ashamed of themselves,” said Democratic strategist Paul Begala. “It’s not like they’re going to be bumping ‘Masterpiece Theater.’ What are they going to run, bikini models eating worms in some kind of contest?” Actually, such a reality show premise could score better ratings than Obama when he’s talking about health care. This will be the third time since June that Obama has pushed the administration’s health care reform plan to the American people during prime-time, and the ratings indicate that audience interest is dropping.

President Barack Obama will address a joint session of Congress on health care reform in prime time on Wednesday, Sept. 9, a senior official tells POLITICO. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/26700.html#ixzz0Pyt224Ru

WASHINGTON, July 22 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama shifts his effort to convince the American people healthcare reform is the right thing to do right now to prime time Wednesday. In an evening news conference, Obama is expected to outline the case for healthcare reform as well as provide an update on what has been accomplished since he took office in January. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told The New York Times Obama intends to use the news conference as a "six-month report card," to talk about "how we rescued the economy from the worst recession" and...

Executives at the Big Four broadcast networks, upset that President Barack Obama has cumulatively cost them more than $30 million in revenue from preempted prime-time programming for three press conferences, say getting advertisers to sponsor future press events as a way to recoup lost revenue isn’t a viable option. After Fox balked at airing Obama in prime time on April 29, other nets joined in, saying they would consider the same action going forward depending on the event’s relevance. Industry observers wondered why networks couldn’t just get advertiser sponsors. Some suggested an ad prior to the conference and one at...

NBC set a low-water mark of historic proportions for TV viewership last week. The network averaged 4.4 million prime-time viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. While it's not the smallest ever recorded by ABC, CBS, NBC or Fox, it's the smallest to come in a week outside of the summer doldrums of June, July, August or early September. Only once before has NBC been lower, during August 2007, Nielsen said. The company's precise records go back to the advent of "people meters" in 1987, but given how dominant broadcast networks were before then, it's likely NBC hasn't had such a...

According to a report from THR.COM TELEVISION, the broadcast networks are considering asking President Obama to curtail prime-time appearances. No change of heart ideologically, mind you; the network execs are reported to be “seething” that Obama “has cost them about $30 million in cumulative ad revenue this year with his three primetime news conference pre-emptions.”

Its ironic that the industry that did it's best to elect Barack Obama to the presidency is now complaining that as President, he costing them too much revenue. But the Major networks are getting angry that President Obama keeps asking for so much time in the evening. As you may imagine, Primetime TV draws the largest audiences and ad revenue. Every time the President preempts the normal evening viewing the networks lose that ad revenue. It is estimated that in the first four months of Obama's presidency the four major broadcast networks lost a total of $30 Million Dollars (and...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13, 2008 – Comedian and former Marine Drew Carey will welcome servicemembers to the stage of ”The Price is Right” during a prime-time airing of a special episode dedicated to the troops. “I think that if they said it was a very special show, it’s because it’s very high-energy. The contestants were really great,” said Stan Blits, the show’s co-producer. “The military guys were just the best, and we had such a fun time taping it with them. “They were all enthusiastic, and it was just really a great honor to have them there,” he added. “They ended...

WASHINGTON – Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was less than upfront in his half-hour commercial Wednesday night about the costs of his programs and the crushing budget pressures he would face in office. Obama's assertion that "I've offered spending cuts above and beyond" the expense of his promises is accepted only by his partisans. His vow to save money by "eliminating programs that don't work" masks his failure throughout the campaign to specify what those programs are — beyond the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

For months, social conservatives have viewed Fred Thompson as a Reaganesque savior in a dreary field of GOP presidential hopefuls. But the former Tennessee senator's early days on the campaign trail have left some prominent evangelicals underwhelmed. "I'm personally not that impressed," says Paul Weyrich, a veteran strategist who cofounded the Moral Majority. One sticking point: Thompson's stance on a same-sex marriage ban. On the trail, he has declined to endorse a constitutional amendment blocking gay marriage, instead backing a broader amendment that would bar states from imposing their laws on other states. "The [marriage ban] approach has been tried...