By Lisa de Moraes
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Looks as though late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Craig Ferguson and David Letterman are going to join Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien in returning to TV on Jan. 2.
One day after NBC announced that Leno and Conan would return on that date, ABC announced that Kimmel would come back the same night.
Meanwhile, Letterman and Ferguson also seem to be planning to go back on the air that night, based on a statement issued yesterday afternoon by Letterman's Worldwide Pants company, which produces both of those CBS shows.
Worldwide Pants says it has been trying to reach an interim deal directly with the Writers Guild of America since the WGA went on strike Nov. 5, after contract renewal talks broke down with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
Last week, when the guild said it would negotiate with individual production companies, Worldwide Pants issued a statement saying: "Because we are an independent production company, we are able to pursue an interim agreement with the Guild without involving CBS in that pursuit. . . . It is our strong desire to be back on the air with our writers, and we hope that will happen as soon as possible."
But Worldwide Pants does not control Internet streaming of the show, which appears on CBS's Web site. Repurposing of WGA-written programming on "new media" is a key sticking point in the the guild's talks with the AMPTP.
Insiders say Worldwide Pants has not met with the guild.
Late yesterday, Rob Burnett, president of Worldwide Pants and exec producer of Letterman's show, issued another statement to say: "We are willing to agree to the writers' demands that are within our control, so we have no reason to believe that an interim agreement can't be achieved with the WGA. As a result, our only focus is on returning January 2nd with writers."
The statement put the media on notice that Letterman is also eyeing a Jan. 2 return.
Meanwhile, ABC wouldn't countenance any questions yesterday about its plans to put Kimmel back on the air. The network referred questions to Kimmel's personal publicist, who supplied a prepared statement from Kimmel's executive producer, Jill Leiderman, that said that until the resolution of the strike, the show "will operate following a modified format in accordance with WGA guidelines" and that Kimmel will appear on the show "while understanding the sensitivity of the current climate."
Kimmel's publicist declined to elaborate.
Armed with non-rerun programming -- how original -- CBS bagged its biggest ratings win this season, as well as eight of the week's top 10 programs.
Here's a look at the week's great and small:
WINNERS
"Deal or No Deal." An 8-10 p.m. edition of NBC's screaming-at-briefcases show logged 13.2 million viewers last Wednesday -- the net's best performance in that slot in 2 1/2 years. Not saying all that much, considering the stuff NBC's put in the time slot -- most recently "Phenomenon" (6.7 million) and "Bionic Woman" (10 million). The presence of "Deal" seems to have put a sock in the 8 p.m. finales of CBS's "Kid Nation" and CW's "America's Next Top Model" (see Losers).
"Shrek the Halls." First telecast on Nov 28, ABC's made-for-TV "Shrek" clocked 21 million viewers. Last Tuesday it bagged an additional 10 million. "Shrek" and the "Winnie the Pooh" special that followed were the week's top two shows among kids on all of TV, beating even cable kid nets.
"Survivor: China." Things are so bad at the networks these days, the smallest fall finale audience in the history of "Survivor" -- 15.2 million viewers -- can still land it in week's No. 2 spot (No. 4 among the 18-to-49-year-olds the networks target).
LOSERS
"Journeyman." NBC has passed on a pickup for its time travel series. On the other hand, the network will begin to "repurpose" episodes of USA network's series "Psych" and "Monk" on its prime-time schedule starting in March.
"Kid Nation." CBS's "Kid Nation" kids ran amok in the final episode, but only 7.3 million people bothered to tune in, which doesn't even match its season average of 7.4 million, and pales in comparison with its opening audience of 9.4 mil. Don't bet on this one to come back.
"America's Next Top Model." Tyra's model-athon on the CW ended its latest cycle with its smallest finale audience since its first cycle: 5.5 million viewers. Last year's fall edition ended with 6.2 million watching.
"Crowned." CW's scary new mother-daughter pageant competition frightened off more than half of "Top Model's" audience. Who thought these two shows were compatible?
"Pushing Daisies." The ABC series suffered its smallest audience ever for an original episode because, turns out, when you schedule repeats of "Private Practice" and "Dirty Sexy Money" after it and it's December, people are going to assume it's a repeat -- which it was not.
"What Perez Says." Only 560,000 checked out Perez Hilton's VH1 special, Thursday at 10. His first special logged 1.1 million viewers back on Sept. 11.
The week's 10 most watched programs, in order, were: CBS's "CSI," "Survivor: China" finale and "Without a Trace"; NBC's "Sunday Night Football"; CBS's Thursday "Survivor: China" penultimate episode, "CSI: NY," "Criminal Minds," "CSI: Miami" and "60 Minutes"; and NBC's Wednesday "Deal or No Deal."
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