Fans' Nutty Campaign May Save 'Jericho' From Tumbling

The Wall Street Journal even ran a video of a guy at its D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif., who hijacked an appearance by Moonves with a commentary about the "passion" of the "hundreds of thousands of people" who wrote to CBS and all those tons of nuts and what did it take for a network to bring back a show.

That guy appears to be the brother- in-law of "Jericho" actress Pamela Reed.

HBO Shuffles the Deck

Not surprisingly, HBO's chief operating officer, Bill Nelson, has been named the pay-cable network's new chairman and CEO.

Nelson is taking the job long held by Chris Albrecht until he was arrested in early May for allegedly roughing up his girlfriend in the parking lot of a Vegas casino where HBO had just telecast a boxing match. That incident inspired the Los Angeles Times to write a story about how Albrecht allegedly had also roughed up another girlfriend who was an HBO employee.

But the HBO Alleged Girlfriend-Rough-Up Fallout doesn't stop there. Three other HBO staffers who didn't get the top job have been made co-presidents: Harold Akselrad, Eric Kessler and Richard Plepler.

Akselrad will manage legal and business affairs, film acquisition and technology groups and will remain HBO's general counsel, network parent Time Warner said in yesterday's announcement.

Kessler gets to oversee marketing and worldwide distribution of HBO networks and content. Plepler will be in charge of HBO's programming and corporate communications.

"I've worked with Bill, Hal, Eric and Richard for many years, and there's not a more skilled, cohesive or widely respected group of executives in the entertainment industry," said Time Warner President and COO Jeff Bewkes. He used to be a top executive at HBO, back when the L.A. Times says Albrecht allegedly roughed up that earlier girlfriend/HBO employee.

But there's more. One Michael Lombardo, who had been vice president, business affairs, production and programming at HBO, has been promoted to president of the programming group, reporting to Plepler. Reporting to Lombardo are a bunch of people who did not get the job, including Colin Callender, president of HBO Films; Ross Greenburg, president of HBO Sports; Sheila Nevins, president, HBO Documentaries & Family; and Carolyn Strauss, president, HBO Entertainment.

Record Ratings

Some broadcast ratings records were set last week. Unfortunately, they were lows.

Here's a look at the week's peaks and vales:

WINNERS

"Army Wives." Lifetime snagged its biggest series-premiere crowd in its 23-year history -- 3.5 million viewers -- with Sunday's 10 p.m. unveiling of this "Desperate Housewives"-ish drama. One hour earlier, a "Desperate Housewives" rerun on ABC logged 3.9 million.

"The Starter Wife." The two-hour opening of the Debra Messing series logged 5.4 million viewers for NBC-owned USA Network on Thursday, beating NBC-owned NBC, which was airing "The Office" (3.9 million), "Scrubs" (3.8 million) and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (4.1 million) during that time. Among the 18-to-49-year-olds NBC craves, "Starter Wife" was the best series performance in all of basic cable this year, beating even such fare as "Dirt" and "The Riches."

LOSERS

NBC. The same week it scored its smallest weekly audience since at least 1991 -- a prime-time average of 4.8 million viewers -- NBC announced it had dumped its entertainment division chief, Kevin Reilly.

"House." When Fox decided to give the unveiling of reality series "On the Lot" the coveted slot after the final "American Idol" performance night of the season (because "OTL" is, oooh, from Steven Spielberg!) instead of the "House" season finale, it not only let another network beat it for the first time ever on an "Idol" night, it also bumped the "House" episode into the summer season, where it logged its smallest-ever season-finale crowd -- 17 million viewers, about 8 million shy of last season's finale. On the bright side, "House" was the most watched show of the week.

"CBS Evening News." Suffered its smallest audience in about 20 years last week -- 5.5 million viewers -- breaking the previous week's record for the smallest audience in about 20 years.

The week's 10 most watched programs, in order, were: Fox's "House"; CBS's "CSI" and "Two and a Half Men"; Fox's Thursday "So You Think You Can Dance"; CBS's "CSI: NY" and "NCIS"; ABC's "Boston Legal"; CBS's "CSI: Miami"; Fox's Wednesday "So You Think You Can Dance"; and CBS's "Shark."