Cable, Getting in a Family-Friendly Way

By Lisa de Moraes
Tuesday, December 13, 2005

File under Irony: On the day that six of the country's cable operators, including one of its largest, announced they would offer "family-friendly" tiers of networks to subscribers by spring, the numbers came out on WB's broadcast of the Seventh Annual Family Television Awards.

Not pretty.

It was very likely the least watched original broadcast of last week. Though, in fairness, its audience of 2.6 million is up considerably from last year's 1.6 million.

The Family Television Awards are put on by a bunch of advertisers who call themselves the Family Friendly Forum and give seed money to develop scripts for programming they deem family friendly.

The effort has resulted in some successful shows, such as "The Gilmore Girls," but also some ratings stinkers, such as "Savages," about a single dad trying, without much result, to raise his sons, and "Clubhouse," about a teenage boy who takes a job as a batboy for a professional baseball team in New York.

This year's honorees included Reba McEntire, star of WB's "Reba"; Jim Belushi, of ABC's "According to Jim"; ABC's drama series "Lost"; CBS's comedy "King of Queens" (still chuckling over that episode in which Kevin James accidentally stapled the family-friendly jewels to his leg); WB's prime-time soap "7th Heaven"; UPN's "Everybody Hates Chris"; CBS's reality series "Amazing Race" (which got lots of press earlier this year when contestant Jonathan Baker routinely abused his wife verbally and shoved her when she picked up his backpack, causing her to stumble); and the TNT teleflick "The Wool Cap."

Yesterday, Time Warner Cable was among the companies that said they would offer "family choice" tiers, probably by spring. Comcast, the other of the country's two largest cable operators, said yesterday it was mulling the whole family-friendly-tier thing.

These cable companies are going to offer, or are considering, the tier concept in hopes it will calm some in the government who advocate allowing viewers to order cable networks "a la carte."

The news was unveiled in Washington to the Senate Commerce Committee by Kyle McSlarrow, president and CEO of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, which is the trade group for the big cable industry.

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Comedy Central, looking for ways to create the missing "bumpers" for the aborted third season of "Chappelle's Show," may ask some people who appeared on the show to fill in for the comic.

Traditionally, Dave Chappelle appeared onstage to kick off each episode. But none of those bumpers had been shot for the third season before Chappelle took a powder.

So the cable network is pondering whether to do "Chappelle's missing" bumpers, using show regulars. Among those being discussed: Chappelle's writing partner Neal Brennan and Charlie "Eddie's Brother" Murphy.

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Good news, you 20 fans of ABC's "Night Stalker." Touchstone -- the TV producing division of Disney, which also owns ABC -- has sold rerun rights to the seven episodes the broadcast network already aired to cable's Sci Fi Channel.

Here's the good part: Sci Fi also gets to premiere the three as-yet-unseen episodes.

Here's the bad part: starting next summer.

Here's the badder part: If, by episode No. 10, you expect answers to any of the show's pressing questions -- Who or what is committing these heinous crimes? Why do some victims end up with a strange red mark in the shape of a snake on their hands? Why does Kolchak always have a sexy if skeptical fellow reporter in tow? (oh wait, we can actually answer that one) -- think again.

* * *

Martha Stewart has gone down in flames in prime time but will live on in daytime syndication.

"Martha" will be back for a second season in the fall, NBC Universal announced yesterday, having already sold it to markets accounting for more than 90 percent of the country.

"The spontaneity of working in front of a participatory audience is exciting for me and the viewers," Stewart said in a prepared statement that oozed spontaneity and excitement.

"In addition, I have the pleasurable challenge of teaching many new things to a daytime audience, which craves great solutions, ideas, recipes and crafts."

Lacking the pleasurable challenge of teaching the prime-time audience great solutions, ideas, recipes and crafts, Martha's edition of "The Apprentice" flopped, averaging fewer than 7 million viewers a week. It will be put out of our misery Dec. 21.

* * *

ABC News has named "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos its chief Washington correspondent.

This means he will show up more often on "World News Tonight," "Nightline" and "Good Morning America."

He will also oversee the network's coverage of Congress; reporter Linda Douglass, who had that responsibility, is leaving that post.

But most important, ABC News was pitching yesterday, the new title gives Stephanopoulos the same stature as his Sunday morning competitors. Bob Schieffer is chief Washington correspondent for CBS News and Tim Russert is Washington bureau chief for NBC News.

Now if he can just get in line with his Sunday morning competitors' ratings.

"This Week" finishes third in the ratings, but division President David Westin noted to the Associated Press that the show had its best November sweeps performance in three years. Which is interesting because we thought that over at ABC News, they didn't even know when the sweeps were.