By Lisa de Moraes
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., July 8
The day on which the Thank God We're Working Summer TV Press Tour got its start was one of singular euphoria.
One year after the previous TV press tour -- the winter one was whacked by the 100-day writers' strike -- endangered TV critics marveled at being employed, back at the posh Beverly Hilton hotel and on an expense account. Actors and producers at the tour, thrilled to be not-on-strike, spoke giddily about their new TV projects.
All, that is, except former Screen Actors Guild president Ed Asner, who ostensibly came to talk about "Generation Gap," his contribution to the pantheon of glutinous TV movies in the Hallmark Channel library. Asner wishes SAG -- the only guild not yet able to pound out a new contract with the Hollywood studios -- would strike; on the other hand, he also wishes the old MGM studio were as clean as it was when Marlon Brando used to eat at the commissary.
Where were we? Oh yes, the Thank God We're Working Summer TV Press Tour . . .
Suits from cable networks -- cable nets dominate the first four days of the tour -- reveled in the viewers they have watching their networks, and even those they don't yet have, thanks to cable system operators that still refuse to carry their networks.
So thrilled were the critics with the whole still-employed/Beverly Hills/expense-account thing, they generously overlooked TV One following its first session, on racism in America, with one that kicked off with homophobic remarks made by a guy who appears to be one of the new co-hosts of TV One show "Black Men Revealed."
And, hours later, they also graciously let it slide when Florence Henderson -- born 1934 -- slipped in a reference to herself as being part of the baby boom generation:
I personally am very grateful to Hallmark because I feel very strongly about the baby boomer generation, that they're sorely neglected on television. . . . We're the fastest-growing segment of the population; I feel we are underserved, underestimated, underappreciated, and I think advertisers forget that we are the ones with the most money.
This is not to say all was perfect happiness on Day 1 of the Thank God We're Working Summer TV Press Tour.
Critics did seem a tad peeved when the Rev. Al Sharpton did not show up for the very first panel. After all, they'd risen at the crack of 9 because they'd been promised that the always quotable Sharpton would be among the panelists for a Q&A session on "Murder in Black and White." The series of documentaries about unsolved civil rights murders from the '40s and '50s was produced by Keith Beauchamp, whose 2005 docu on Emmett Till inspired the government to reopen that 1955 case.
TV One CEO Johnathan Rodgers's tepid answer on why Sharpton was a no-show -- "I think Reverend Sharpton is in New York" and "We had invited him to come and he wasn't available" -- did nothing to soothe ruffled critics.
Only ages later, Jacque Reid, an anchor for TV One's upcoming coverage of the Democratic National Convention, told the critics she'd interviewed Sharpton the day before on Tom Joyner's radio show and he had to change his plans at the last minute when "a very close friend," the Rev. Timothy Wright, was critically injured in a holiday weekend car crash that killed Wright's wife and grandson. Why hadn't Rodgers just said so?
And how interesting that a show purporting to foster discussion and debate about topics relevant to black men is hosted by a man who says absolutely he will not change his mind on any subject because he's "strong in my convictions about how I feel about everything."
That's Ryan Stewart, who is one of the stars of the nationally syndicated radio program "2 Live Stews" and one of the new co-hosts of the returning "Black Men Revealed." He's also the guy who said if TV One were to hire the gay man who was a guest on the show in one of the clips shown to critics, "I probably would leave the set." He did not elaborate; on the other hand, he was not asked to.
Critics also did not seem altogether pleased that TV One plans to cover the Democratic convention but not the Republican convention.
"This is a huge deal for TV One, as it is for the African American community," Rodgers said of Sen. Barack Obama's impending nomination on the Democratic ticket. "African Americans have fallen in love with Barack Obama's . . . candidacy. . . . We will be covering the Democratic convention all the time."
When asked why TV One wasn't covering the GOP convention as well, Rodgers said, "We are not a news organization.
"We are a television network designed to celebrate African American achievement. If Hillary . . . was the nominee, we would not be covering this year's Democratic convention."
Rodgers noted that Federal Communications Commission rules requiring broadcast networks to give equal time to all presidential candidates do not apply to a cable entertainment network like TV One.
"And you think that's okay, though?" one critic pressed.
"My audience is 93 percent black. I serve my audience," Rodgers said.
Comedian Sheryl Underwood, a contributor to "TV One Live: DNC Afterparty," said she was that show's only Republican bit of on-air talent, and that she's voting for Obama. When one critic asked whether African American Republicans should feel slighted by the decision to cover just the Democrats' confab, Underwood shot back, "I speak for all eight of us -- we are not slighted."
* * * Ted Koppel is back!
Yes, we know, he's managing editor of Discovery Channel, but it's not the same. "Back" is more along the lines of joining BBC America and BBC World News as contributing analyst, which Koppel will do, BBC Worldwide America President Garth Ancier announced at Thank God We're Working Summer TV Press Tour 2008.
Koppel, who took a break from plugging his upcoming Discovery documentary on China to participate in the announcement via satellite, noted how very appropriate this was because he was born in the U.K. and spent his formative years there, including watching at least one British TV show.
And, in a ringing endorsement, Koppel said in a statement: "To the degree that our future in this country is dependent to any extent on what's happening in the rest of the of the world -- which you won't hear about a great deal on the American networks -- then the BBC can be very, very helpful."
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