History > 2006 > USA > Television (II-VI)

Frank Stanton,

Broadcasting Pioneer,

Dies at 98

December 26, 2006
The New York Times
By HOLCOMB B. NOBLE

Frank Stanton, a central figure in the development of television broadcasting in the United States and the industry’s most articulate and persuasive spokesman during his nearly three decades as president of CBS, died Sunday afternoon at his home in Boston, a longtime friend, Elizabeth Allison, said.

He was 98 and had been in declining health, she said.

Dr. Stanton was the right-hand man of William S. Paley, the tycoon who built the Columbia Broadcasting System empire from a handful of struggling radio stations in 1928.

From 1946 to 1973, they operated as probably the greatest team in the history of broadcasting, making CBS, for a time, the most powerful communications company in the world, and the most prestigious. It was under Dr. Stanton and Mr. Paley that CBS, mixing entertainment programming with high-quality journalism and dashes of high culture, earned its reputation as the Tiffany Network.

As a brilliant corporate builder and a technologically minded executive, Dr. Stanton — everybody used the “doctor” — played a pivotal role in CBS’s rise. He did so despite a relationship with Mr. Paley that was often strained and an object of puzzlement to those around them.

In her 1990 biography of Mr. Paley, “In All His Glory,” Sally Bedell Smith wrote: “Temperamentally, the two men were opposites: Paley, the man of boundless charm, superficially warm but essentially heartless and self-absorbed; Stanton, the self-contained Swiss whose business acumen, decency and understated humor endeared him to his colleagues.

“Paley had a restless, readily satisfied curiosity while Stanton probed more deeply and was interested in a broader range of subjects,” Ms. Smith continued. “Paley acted from the gut; Stanton from the brain. Paley could be disorganized and unpredictable. Stanton was disciplined and systematic.”

The two men did not socialize. Ms. Smith wrote that Mr. Paley had resented Dr. Stanton’s refusal to invite him to his home, calling his associate “a closed-off, cold man.”

Dr. Stanton was admired by politicians, businessmen and fellow broadcasters as a principled executive with high aspirations. The industry turned to him to lead their battles against government involvement in radio and television programming.

During the early days of television, when Mr. Paley clung to the idea that network radio would remain CBS’s meal ticket, Dr. Stanton realized that the company’s prosperity would rest with television and diversification into areas like the long-playing phonograph, whose growth he guided after its development by Peter Goldmark.

In 1946, Dr. Stanton began charting CBS’s sometimes painful growth as a television network. He was clear about what direction it should take. “Television, like radio,” Dr. Stanton said in 1948, “should be a medium for the majority of Americans, not for any small or special groups; therefore its programming should be largely patterned for what these majority audiences like and want.”

Frank Nicholas Stanton was born on March 20, 1908, in Muskegon, Mich., the older of two sons of Frank Cooper Stanton, a woodworking and mechanics teacher, and the former Helen Schmidt. After his family moved to Dayton, Ohio, when he was a boy, Frank learned electronics at his father’s workbench.

Young Frank majored in zoology and psychology at Ohio Wesleyan University, graduating in 1930 intending to become a doctor. But finding medical school too expensive, he accepted a scholarship to Ohio State to study psychology and earned a master’s degree in 1932. A year earlier, he married Ruth Stephenson, whom he had met at Sunday school when they were both 14.

While he pursued a doctorate, studying ways to measure radio audiences, he invented a kind of forerunner of the Nielsen audimeter. Dr. Stanton’s device could be installed inside a radio receiver to register what programs listeners were tuning in. Paul Kesten, a CBS executive, was so impressed that he offered Mr. Stanton a job in its two-man research department for $55 a week. The day after receiving his doctorate, in 1935, Dr. Stanton and his wife got in their Model A Ford and headed for New York.

By 1938, Dr. Stanton had become CBS’s research director with a staff of 100. With the social scientist Paul F. Lazarsfeld, he invented a device called the program analyzer, which enabled CBS to track the responses of 100 listeners to a radio program, gauging their likes and dislikes. CBS used it for a half-century.

Dr. Stanton remained with the network during World War II while serving as a consultant to the Secretary of War, the Office of War Information and the Office of Facts and Figures. By 1945 he had become vice president and general manager of CBS. He became president the following year, at age 38, after Mr. Kesten, Mr. Paley’s first choice for the job, declined. Mr. Kesten, citing poor health, recommended Dr. Stanton instead, and Mr. Paley invited Dr. Stanton to his Long Island estate. After dinner, they took a walk in the rain. Mr. Paley stunned his guest, saying, “By the way, Frank, I want you to run the company.” Mr. Paley said he wanted to be free of the day-to-day problems of running CBS.

As president, Dr. Stanton reorganized CBS into separate divisions for radio, television and laboratories. Programming was Mr. Paley’s domain, though Dr. Stanton was responsible for moving CBS’s biggest radio star of the 1940s, Arthur Godfrey, into television and taking a chance on a hard-drinking comic named Jackie Gleason.

“I think if there was anything I wanted to do with the company and I proposed it, there was a pretty good chance I could go ahead and do it,” Ms. Smith quoted Dr. Stanton as saying.

But one person he could not control was Edward R. Murrow, CBS’s most celebrated journalist. Mr. Murrow was close to Mr. Paley and repeatedly went over Dr. Stanton’s head to discuss his plans or problems with Mr. Paley. Mr. Murrow regarded Dr. Stanton as a numbers-cruncher who knew little about news, and he tended to blame Dr. Stanton, not Mr. Paley, when management thwarted him.

When Mr. Murrow’s acclaimed weekly program “See It Now” began to lose sponsors, Mr. Paley stepped in and cut the program to 8 or 10 broadcasts a year, before taking it off the air in 1958. Mr. Murrow’s diminishment seemed to elevate Dr. Stanton’s standing as a force at CBS News.

As network president, Dr. Stanton focused on the news division, creating an executive review board to keep news policy and editorializing separate. He combined the news and public affairs departments, increased the news department’s budget and extended the nightly news to 30 minutes from 15 minutes. He also created the weekly investigative and news documentary program “CBS Reports.”

In August 1958, the network was plunged into scandal after a contestant on the popular program “The $64,000 Question” revealed that he and others had been fed answers. Congressional and law-enforcement investigations were opened. Mounting his own investigation, Dr. Stanton forced the resignation of the executive responsible for the show and canceled the network’s remaining quiz shows.

Dr. Stanton saw diversification as necessary to CBS’s growth. The network began acquiring companies, publishing magazines and books, and producing Broadway shows like “My Fair Lady,” and it bought the New York Yankees. (The Yankees fared poorly under CBS, which sold the team to investors led by George Steinbrenner.)

Dr. Stanton oversaw the development of the network’s symbol, the CBS Eye, designed by William Golden. And he was chiefly responsible for shepherding its headquarters, the Manhattan skyscraper known as Black Rock, into existence. He chose Eero Saarinen as the architect and fought with Mr. Paley over the austere International-style design, with its black exterior. Mr. Paley wanted the building to be pink.

In dealing with the government, Dr. Stanton could count on powerful friends, including Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson. Yet he and Mr. Paley did not resist the anti-Communist hunts of the late 1940s and early 50s.

In 1950, to reassure advertisers and pressure groups, Dr. Stanton approved requiring CBS employees to take an oath of loyalty to the United States. The next year, with Mr. Paley’s approval, Dr. Stanton created a security office staffed by former F.B.I. agents to investigate the political leanings of employees. Writers, directors and others were blacklisted. Years later, in 1999, upon receiving an award for his efforts on behalf of the First Amendment, Dr. Stanton conceded that the network’s response to pressure might not have been the best one.

“I didn’t have the wisdom, nor did anyone else,” Mr. Stanton said. “The head of the law department was one of the fairest people I’ve ever known. When he said this was the course we should follow, we went along with it.”

With the 1960 presidential election approaching, Dr. Stanton persuaded Congress to suspend the “equal time” provision in the Communications Act, making it possible to televise debates between the Democratic nominee, Senator John F. Kennedy, and his Republican rival, Vice President Richard M. Nixon, without including candidates of smaller parties. Those debates signaled the arrival of television as a dominant force in presidential politics.

Dr. Stanton bore much of the criticism when Washington objected to CBS News’s coverage of the war in Vietnam, and was threatened with jail in 1971. CBS had broadcast an hourlong investigative report called “The Selling of the Pentagon,” about a $30 million campaign by the Defense Department to improve its image, and the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee demanded that he turn over material cut from the program. When he refused to comply, he was called before the committee.

He said the order amounted to an infringement of free speech and freedom of the press under the First Amendment. “If newsmen are told their notes, films and tapes will be subject to compulsory process so that the government can determine whether the news has been satisfactorily edited,” he said, “the scope, nature and vigor of their news reporting will be inevitably curtailed.”

The committee voted to cite him for contempt. But after an emotional debate, the full House rejected the committee’s citation.

When the Nixon administration began attacking the networks over their war coverage, it was often Dr. Stanton who answered. “Stanton was a firewall between the presidency and the reporters covering the White House,” said Robert Pierpoint, a former CBS White House correspondent.

For years, Dr. Stanton believed he would get the top job at CBS — chairman and chief executive — when Mr. Paley reached age 65 in 1966. Mr. Paley had promised him the job, after all. Dr. Stanton was so certain that he rejected an opportunity to become head of the University of California and turned down President Johnson’s offers to make him secretary of health, education and welfare or under secretary of state.

But Mr. Paley continued as chairman past his retirement age, and the relationship between the two men was never the same. In 1967, Dr. Stanton signed a new contract, which required him to step down as president in 1971 to become vice chairman and to remain in the post until his retirement at 65 in 1973.

After leaving that position, Dr. Stanton was chairman and chief operating officer of the American Red Cross for six years. He served on the boards of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Institution, the Stanford Research Institute and Lincoln Center. He was also the first non-Harvard graduate in the 20th century to serve on the Harvard board, and he spent much of the rest of his life in Cambridge, Mass., working on university projects. He sat on the CBS board until 1978, then became a consultant until 1987, though he was seldom called on to consult.

For all his accomplishments at CBS, Dr. Stanton had left the network in disillusion, disappointment and sorrow, assessing it as “just another company with dirty carpets.”

When he retired in 1973, he left Black Rock quietly, refusing to allow Mr. Paley to give him a party. His parting words were quoted by Lillian Ross in The New Yorker: “I think I’ll make it home in time for the 7 o’clock news.”

Dr. Stanton’s wife, Ruth, died in 1992. Mrs. Allison, who with her husband, Graham, helped care for Dr. Stanton in recent years, said that there were no survivors.

She said that Dr. Stanton had directed that there be no memorial service and no donations in his memory, which she said reminded her of his attitude upon his departure from CBS.

“When he left, he just left,” Mrs. Allison said. “He was consistent, right to the end.”

    Frank Stanton, Broadcasting Pioneer, Dies at 98, NYT, 26.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/26/business/media/26stanton.html

The TV Watch

Not Coming Soon

to a Channel Near You

November 16, 2006
The New York Times
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

The lead story on the debut of Al Jazeera’s new English language channel yesterday was the re-election of President Joseph Kabila of Congo.

There were also features on the hip, multicultural scene in Damascus; traffic in Beijing; Brazilian indigenous tribes; and the trials and tribulations of a Palestinian ambulance driver in Gaza. “Everywoman,” a weekly woman’s program, took on “the horrors of skin-bleaching cream” and also spoke to the wife of Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera cameraman who has spent years imprisoned without trial at Guantánamo Bay.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld once famously denounced the Arab-language Al Jazeera as “vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable,” which may be one reason that major cable and satellite providers in the United States declined to offer the English version. Yesterday, most Americans could watch it only on the Internet at english.aljazeera.net.

It’s a shame. Americans can see almost anything on television these days, from Polish newscasts to reruns of “Benson.” The new channel, Al Jazeera English, will never displace CNN, MSNBC or Fox News, but it provides the curious — or the passionately concerned — with a window into how the world sees us, or doesn’t. It’s a Saul Steinberg map of the globe in which the channel’s hub in Doha, Qatar, looms over Iran, Iraq, Syria and the West Bank — the dots in the horizon are New York and Hollywood.

While American cable news shows focused yesterday on live coverage of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s hearings on Iraq, Al Jazeera English was crammed with reports about Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East, the crisis in Darfur, kidnappings in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with frequent updates on Israeli retaliatory air strikes in Gaza.

Even on a computer screen, Al Jazeera English looks like CNN International and sounds like a cross of C-Span and Fox News: the stories are long and detailed (that’s the C-Span part); behind the news reports is an overall sensibility that is different from that of most mainstream television news organizations (that’s the Fox News part).

Just as Fox News gives its viewers a vision of the world as seen by conservative, patriotic Americans, Al Jazeera English reflects the mindsets across much of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. It is an American-style cable news network with jazzy newsrooms, poised, attractive anchors, flashy promos and sleek ads for Qatar Airways, Nokia and Shell. But its goal is to bring a non-Western perspective to the West.

There was no fuss over Naomi Campbell’s court appearance on accusations that she had struck her maid or People magazine’s choice for “Sexiest Man Alive” (George Clooney) on Al Jazeera English. A promo for an upcoming program described American policy in Iraq as George Bush’s “alleged war on terror.”

Al Jazeera English — which also broadcasts from bureaus in London, Washington and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — recruited many Western journalists, including David Frost and Dave Marash, a longtime “Nightline” correspondent who was let go by ABC almost a year ago. Both men are showcased in advertisements for the channel, but were not as visible on the maiden newscast. Mr. Marash, based in Washington, is the anchor of an evening newscast alongside Ghida Fakhry.

Riz Khan, a veteran of the BBC and CNN, is one of the channel’s bigger stars — he has his own show, “Riz Khan,” on Al Jazeera English. Yesterday, he conducted separate but equally long satellite interviews with Ismail Haniya, prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, and Shimon Peres, Israel’s deputy prime minister.

Mr. Khan asked the two leaders questions sent in by viewers, including a New Yorker named Danny who asked if Mr. Haniya was worried that he would be killed like so many of his predecessors, a question Mr. Khan described as “morbid.” Mr. Haniya was not offended. “All Palestinians are in danger: leaders, women, children and the elderly,” he replied. “We always expect the worst from Israel.” When his turn came, Mr. Peres was just as unruffled.

The original Al Jazeera, created in 1996 with the backing of the emir of Qatar, boasts that it gets as many complaints from African dictators and Muslim leaders as American officials. American viewers mostly know it as an Arab-language news channel that shows Osama bin Laden videos and grisly images of dead American soldiers and mutilated Iraqi children. If yesterday is any indication, the English language version is more button-down and cosmopolitan.

Though Al Jazeera English looks at news events through a non-Western prism, it also points to where East and West actually meet. On a feature story, a group of Syrian women, Muslim and Christian, let a reporter follow them on their girls’ night out. Topic A was the shortage of men in Syria.

    Not Coming Soon to a Channel Near You, NYT, 16.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/16/arts/television/16watch.html

Veteran TV host Bob Barker

to retire after 50 years

Tue Oct 31, 2006 10:51 PM ET
Reuters
By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Veteran TV host Bob Barker plans to retire from "The Price Is Right" in June after 35 years as emcee of America's longest-running game show and five decades on network television, CBS said on Tuesday.

Barker, 82, who launched his national television career in December 1956 as host of another long-running game show, NBC's popular "Truth or Consequences," said he was ready to take a break from the hectic pace of taping five shows a week.

"One of the reasons for my retirement is it is really a demanding schedule for me at my age," Barker told Reuters, adding that he wanted to devote more time to charitable work.

The tall, lanky entertainer, who grew up on a South Dakota Indian reservation where his mother taught school, got his start in radio and also emceed the Miss USA and Miss Universe Pageants for 21 years.

An avid animal rights activist, Barker resigned from the national pageant circuit in 1988 because producers of those shows refused to remove fur coats from the prize packages.

But the Emmy-winning star is most closely associated with "The Price Is Right," which he has hosted since the program began its current run on CBS in 1972. He is estimated to have awarded more than $200 million in prizes during his career.

Now in its 35th consecutive season, "The Price Is Right" long ago surpassed "What's My Line," which aired for 18 years, as the longest-running game show on U.S. television.

The show currently airs two half-hour editions weekdays and ranks as the second- and third-most watched broadcasts on daytime television. The later edition averages more than 5.5 million viewers a day, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Show contestants, beckoned to the stage when the announcer calls "Come on down!," compete for prizes by coming as close as they can to guessing the actual value of those prizes without going over.

Barker said his affable, easy-going style in handling players whose exuberance at times borders on hysteria was a skill that came naturally to him but improved with experience. He credited the contestants with keeping the show fresh.

"That game is different with each contestant's personality, and that is what has made it interesting for me," he said. "Working with unrehearsed contestants, creating spontaneous entertainment, that's what I've done for all these years, and I've enjoyed it."

He said the most memorable moment on the show was when a young female contestant's tube top slipped when she jumped up and down with excitement, exposing both breasts.

Barker, one of TV's first game show hosts to let his hair turn naturally gray-white, broke the late Johnny Carson's record for continuous performances on the same network show in April 2002. Carson retired in 1992 after more than 29 years as host of NBC's "The Tonight Show."

CBS spokesman Chris Ender said "The Price Is Right" will continue after Barker leaves, "but it's premature to discuss any transition plans right now. Our focus now will be giving Bob a proper send-off."

    Veteran TV host Bob Barker to retire after 50 years, R, 1.11.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-11-01T035118Z_01_N31242448_RTRUKOC_0_US-LEISURE-BARKER.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L3-U.S.+NewsNews-4

On TV as in Hollywood,

Little Breathing Room

for the Modest Success

October 23, 2006
The New York Times
By EDWARD WYATT

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 22 — Few new television shows had as much going for them this fall as “Smith,” a CBS series about a career thief out for one last big score before he retires.

In most seasons, “Smith” would be considered a hit. Even after drawing mixed reviews from critics, its debut attracted 11 million viewers, and the first three episodes attracted an average audience of more than 9 million.

Then, like a thief in the night, “Smith” suddenly disappeared, pulled from the schedule by CBS after just three weeks — despite the fact that the producers had already shot or were well on their way to completing four more episodes.

The quick cancellation of “Smith” elucidates how television, like the movie industry, has become a business where there is little room for the modest success. Network executives might talk endlessly about how, in an era where the attention of audiences is ever more scattered, new shows need time to find themselves. But those same executives are often quick to pull the plug on an expensive production that does not immediately perform to expectations.

Combined with NBC’s announcement last week of plans to cut back on expensive programming, the experience of “Smith” demonstrates how the recent trend in television — costly serializations with large casts and complex plots — changes the basic rules of engagement for networks. Viewers cannot easily dip in and out of these kinds of shows, as they can with a half-hour situation comedy or game show. So networks have to make decisions on more expensive, more complex series based on very small samples — a few episodes, typically — to predict whether viewers will commit to an entire season, as they have for similar shows like “Lost” or “24.”

The calculation is perilous as well for the television studios, like Warner Brothers, which is experiencing a tough season. In addition to canceling “Smith,” CBS pulled out of another planned Warner Brothers series, “Waterfront.” Several other Warner series are also on the ropes, including “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” which is broadcast on NBC; “The Nine” on ABC and “The Class” on CBS.

Among the new fall shows, “Smith” had one of the best pedigrees. The series starred two accomplished actors, Ray Liotta, an Emmy winner, and Virginia Madsen, an Oscar nominee, as the thief and his unsuspecting wife. The show was the product of John Wells, one of the most prolific and successful television producers of current times, who had a hand in the building of the hit shows “ER,” “Third Watch” and, along with Aaron Sorkin, “The West Wing.”

The first episode of “Smith” cost $7 million, roughly double the usual cost of a television premiere. CBS executives were so enthusiastic about the results that they agreed to let the first episode run nearly a third longer than most hour-long dramas; to accommodate the extra length, they recruited a single sponsor — the Warner Brothers film “The Departed” — and ran the show with limited commercials.

Nina Tassler, the president of CBS Entertainment, said that “Smith” was not the victim of networks looking for quicker results. At a panel discussion here last week that featured the heads of all the major television networks, she said that at CBS the emphasis is on giving new shows the time and attention they need.

“One of the things we do very well is continue to work and develop a show well into its first year and second year,” Ms. Tassler said. She cited the network’s experience with “Criminal Minds,” which grew from a modest opening last year to last week attracting more viewers than ABC’s “Lost.”

When asked in an interview how those comments meshed with the network’s quick retreat on “Smith,” Ms. Tassler said the problems came from the show’s confusing story line. In addition, she said, “Smith” was keeping a shrinking portion of the audience of the two hit shows that preceded it on Tuesday nights, “The Unit” and “NCIS.”

“When you launch a new show, you certainly want it to retain a certain percentage of its lead-in,” she said. “You also want it to build in the second half hour, and we really weren’t doing that with ‘Smith.’ ”

In its first week, 11 million, or 93 percent, of the 11.8 million viewers of “The Unit” stuck around for the first episode of “Smith.” In the second week, that percentage fell to 81 percent, then plummeted to 63 percent in the third week.

Not only was “Smith” keeping less of its lead-in audience, but a shrinking portion of the previous week’s viewers returned each week to see the next installment of “Smith.” And the number of viewers also fell consistently from the first half hour to the second.

Still, those results were not so different from the experience of several other new shows this fall — most of which are still on the air. “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” has seen its ratings and viewers fall each week, from 13.4 million viewers for its first episode to 8.6 million for its fourth. “Vanished,” on Fox, “Kidnapped,” on NBC, “Brothers & Sisters,” on ABC, and “Jericho,” on CBS have all seen their audiences fall from week to week. But they are still on the air.

The problem with “Smith,” Ms. Tassler said, is that CBS executives did not believe it was going to get any better.

“We have a unique vantage point at the network,” she said. “I’ve seen cuts and read scripts for the next four to five episodes, so I could see where we’re headed creatively. And we weren’t 100 percent happy with what we were looking at.”

Specifically, she said, the show’s scripts were becoming harder to follow. “You have to have clarity in the story-telling,” she said. “Confusion kills. I think it was particularly challenged in that area.”

Neither Mr. Wells nor executives at Warner Brothers Television would agree to be interviewed for this story.

Despite cutting the series from its schedule after three weeks, CBS had a commitment to buy several more episodes, which Warner Brothers had spent handily to produce — well over $2.5 million a show, according to people close to the production.

Unlike most television series, which are filmed on studio lots in Los Angeles to help contain costs, “Smith” shot large segments of its debut episode on location — in Hawaii and Pittsburgh, for example — and made ample use of collisions, explosions and other special effects. “It was a gorgeous show,” Ms. Tassler said. “It looked beautiful. But an audience sits at home and they don’t watch a show influenced by how much it costs. It’s not a factor in why they become a fan of the show.”

Ms. Tassler said CBS was planning to put the already filmed episodes of “Smith” on its Internet site for viewing and to post synopses of the plans for the full season of shows.

From a financial standpoint, however, it might be hard to argue with CBS’s decision to can “Smith.” The week after the show was cancelled, the “CSI” re-run that replaced it drew more than 10 million viewers, 20 percent more viewers than the last episode of “Smith” and a far higher percentage of the lead-in audience from “The Unit.”

But with an average of nine million fans having tuned in, inevitably there were many disappointed viewers who went looking for the fourth episode of “Smith,” only to find yet another episode of “CSI.” Some of them took to Internet bulletin boards to express their outrage, like a viewer named Matthew on the Web site www.TVSeriesFinale.com.

“I just want to say how much of a relief it was to sit down and watch a show like ‘Smith’ without having to hear any medical mumble jumbo,” he wrote.

    On TV as in Hollywood, Little Breathing Room for the Modest Success, NYT, 23.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/business/media/23smith.html

Passions Flare

as Broadcast of 9/11 Mini-Series Nears

September 8, 2006
The New York Times
By PATRICK HEALY and JESSE McKINLEY

Under growing pressure from Democrats and aides to former President Bill Clinton, ABC is re-evaluating and in some cases re-editing crucial scenes in its new mini-series “The Path to 9/11” to soften its portrait of the Clinton administration’s pursuit of Osama bin Laden, according to people involved in the project.

Among the changes, ABC is altering one scene in which an actor playing Samuel R. Berger, the former national security adviser, abruptly hangs up on a C.I.A. officer during a critical moment in a military operation, according to Thomas H. Kean, a consultant on the ABC project and co-chairman of the federal Sept. 11 commission.

Mr. Berger has said that the scene is a fiction, and Mr. Kean, in an interview, said that he believed Mr. Berger was correct and that ABC was making appropriate changes.

The reassessment came as two Clinton aides mounted an unusual attack last night on the motives of Mr. Kean, a Republican and a former governor of New Jersey. In a letter to Mr. Kean, the two aides, Bruce R. Lindsey and Douglas Band, wrote that his defense of the mini-series “is destroying the bipartisan aura of the 9/11 Commission,” on whose findings the project is partly based. They asserted that Mr. Kean was driven by payments from ABC or his own partisan politics.

Mr. Kean, who called Mr. Clinton a good friend, said it was outrageous to suggest he was being swayed by money or politics, and added that any fee he received would be donated to charity. He said he stood by the film because he believed it would draw attention to the commission’s security recommendations, many of which have not been put into effect, and because the film did not pretend to be a documentary.

Yet Mr. Kean, as well as other members of the commission, did say they were concerned that their widely praised investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks might be diminished in some way by the mini-series.

“Mini-series often make things more dramatic by fictionalizing,” Mr. Kean said. “I don’t think the fictional moments reflect on the work of the commission, but I do hope that the controversy doesn’t tarnish it. ABC is trying to be as accurate as possible.”

Democrats and allies of Mr. Clinton unleashed full-throated appeals to ABC yesterday to cancel the broadcast, which is scheduled for Sunday and Monday nights. The Senate Democratic leadership sent a letter to Robert A. Iger, the chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, ABC’s parent, saying that broadcasting the film “would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility.”

The national Democratic Party drew more than 100,000 signatures in 24 hours to a petition of complaint that it plans to give to ABC today.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, one of 10 senators at a news conference yesterday where the mini-series came up, left before she could be asked about it. A small throng of reporters who followed her out of the building toward her office were kept at bay by her aides.

The changes to the mini-series are still being made inside an editing suite in Los Angeles, with a variety of creative staff members and executives, including Marc Platt, the executive producer, who has been monitoring the editing from London, and David L. Cunningham, the director, who is being consulted at his home in Hawaii.

Mr. Kean said that two other parts of the film are also under review. One is a scene where an actress playing former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright is apparently obstructing efforts to capture Mr. bin Laden. The other part suggests that Mr. Clinton was too distracted by impeachment and his marital problems to fully focus on Mr. bin Laden.

Mr. Platt said that he could not offer specifics about what scenes were being examined, but that editing was going on and “will continue to, if needed until we broadcast.”

“From Day 1, we’ve examined any issue or question that’s arisen,” he said. “And we’ll continue to do so until the last possible moment.”

Mr. Kean said he was surprised by the outcry, since most of the critics have not seen the film. He said Mr. Clinton had spoken directly to Mr. Iger last Friday; Clinton aides declined to comment.

Several 9/11 commission members said yesterday that they respected Mr. Kean immensely but that they were concerned about the ABC project and his role in it. One of them, Timothy J. Roemer, a Democrat, said he called Mr. Kean yesterday to urge ABC to make changes. Another, Jamie S. Gorelick, a former Clinton administration official, wrote Mr. Iger yesterday that the nation and schoolchildren would be poorly served if they drew lessons from the mini-series that were inaccurate.

Scholastic, the children’s publishing company, which had been working with ABC to use “The Path to 9/11” as a teaching tool, said yesterday that it was removing materials related to the film from its Web site. A spokeswoman said a new study guide was being prepared that would explain the difference between a docudrama and a documentary.

Anne E. Kornblut contributed reporting from Washington.

    Passions Flare as Broadcast of 9/11 Mini-Series Nears, NYT, 8.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/washington/08film.html

Advertising

In a TiVo World, Television Turns Marketing Efforts to New Media

September 5, 2006
The New York Times
By STUART ELLIOTT

MUCH of the ferment that is remaking Madison Avenue is centered on the changes in television, still the largest and arguably most powerful advertising medium. Two deals that are scheduled to be announced today are indicative of the ways TV is headed in new directions to meet the new needs of marketers.

One deal involves CBS, part of the CBS Corporation, and TiVo, the leader in digital video recorder technology. The agreement is intended to make it easier for TiVo subscribers to sample the four new series on the CBS schedule this fall: “The Class,” “Jericho,” “Shark” and “Smith.”

For instance, for a week beginning Monday, TiVo will offer its 4.4 million subscribers a preview of the premiere episode of “The Class,” a sitcom that broadcasts Sept. 18 on CBS.

The agreement is the first time that TiVo, which is trying to change its image as being unfriendly to advertisers, and a broadcast network have teamed up for a sneak peak of a new series. Previous preview deals struck by the broadcasters have been off television, offering computer users a chance to watch streaming video on Web sites like msn.com and yahoo.com.

The other agreement involves ITN Networks, a media sales company in New York with estimated annual billings of $300 million. ITN assembles customized national TV networks for advertisers from the commercial time it buys from local broadcast stations. ITN clients include Burger King, Capital One, Clorox, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Sara Lee and Sears.

A group of media heavyweights — Sony Pictures Television, Veronis Suhler Stevenson and the Zelnick Media Corporation — is buying a majority stake in ITN, spending an estimated $200 million initially as part of plans to eventually invest up to $250 million. The group also intends to expand ITN beyond broadcast TV into other realms like cable and satellite TV, the Internet and video games.

For all the focus on new media, “people will not stop watching television anytime soon,” said Strauss Zelnick, chief executive at Zelnick Media in New York, who will take the new post of chairman at ITN.

The problem with television is that “for years, it’s been a one-size-fits-all medium, when advertisers want to reach targeted audiences more effectively,” Mr. Zelnick said. “We’re trying to look around the corner and benefit from where the media market is going in the future.”

• The agreement between CBS and TiVo was developed with Interpublic Media, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies. TiVo signed a multimillion-dollar advertising agreement with Interpublic last May, which was followed last week by a similar deal with the Omnicom Media Group division of the Omnicom Group.

“We now have comprehensive agreements with two of the top three advertising holding companies,” said Tom Rogers, chief executive at TiVo in Alviso, Calif. (The third is the WPP Group.)

“A year or more ago, TiVo was a real pariah in advertising circles,” Mr. Rogers said, because of fears it would enable viewers to more efficiently avoid commercials by zipping through or zapping them as they watched shows on their DVR’s.

Now, advertisers and agencies understand that spot-dodging “is a fact of modern television viewing behavior,” he added, “and how TiVo can be a force to make advertising more effective.” For example, a service called TiVo Product Watch gives viewers the option to download on demand commercials that are meant to be more creative and informative than conventional spots.

As part of the deal between TiVo and CBS, TiVo subscribers will be able, with one click of their remote controls, to record the premieres of all four CBS series newcomers when they are broadcast on Sept. 18 (“The Class”), Sept. 19 (“Smith”), Sept. 20 (“Jericho”) and Sept. 21 (“Shark”). It will be the first time that TiVo has grouped network shows to be recorded as a bundle.

The TiVo agreement is among various efforts by CBS to let consumers sample its prime-time series for the 2006-7 season. There will also be previews of “The Class” and “Shark” on 40,000 American Airlines flights this month and streaming video of “Jericho” on yahoo.com.

George F. Schweitzer, president at the CBS Marketing Group division of CBS, calls it part of an “outer-Net strategy” to attract viewers in a cluttered market. Other offbeat examples include advertising on eggs, postage stamps, water coolers, elevator doors and cruise ships.

“We’re in all the mainstream media, too,” Mr. Schweitzer said, “but we like being in the edgier places where our competitors are not.”

ITN, founded in 1983, is not an actual network like CBS, although it is included in the national Nielsen people meter ratings. Rather, ITN forms ad hoc networks on behalf of its clients based on viewer characteristics like age and sex. For instance, if Clorox wants to reach women ages 25 to 54 to sell them a new bleach, ITN buys commercial time on local TV stations in programs that appeal to those viewers.

The deal with the investment group “provides us with an opportunity to take the concept to a higher level,” said Todd Watson, president and chief operating officer at ITN, “and target viewers based on lifestyles and behaviors.”

One such effort is already under way, he said, which ITN calls the Mom’s Time Network, intended to help three marketers of packaged goods better aim their pitches at working women with children.

•The current managers of ITN will continue in their posts. In addition to Mr. Watson, they include Timothy J. Connors Jr., chief executive. Mr. Connors and Michael Kammerer have been the owners of ITN; they will retain a minority stake.

Zelnick Media also owns interests in Columbia Music Entertainment; National Lampoon; OTX, an online market research company; SkyMall, the in-flight catalog company; Time Life, the seller of recorded music; and UGO Networks, for online game players. ITN is its “second deal in the advertising space,” Mr. Zelnick said, after Naylor Publications, a trade publisher.

Executives from Veronis Suhler Stevenson and Sony Pictures Television will also join the ITN board, along with Mr. Zelnick. They include Kevin S. Waldman, managing director at Veronis Suhler Stevenson, an investment bank specializing in the media and information industries, and Steve Mosko, president at Sony Pictures Television.

Sony Pictures Television produces shows like “Days of Our Lives,” “Jeopardy,” “Rescue Me” and “Wheel of Fortune.” It is part of the Sony Pictures Entertainment division of the Sony Corporation of America, owned by the Sony Corporation of Japan.

    In a TiVo World, Television Turns Marketing Efforts to New Media, NYT, 5.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/05/business/media/05adco.html

Mike Douglas, TV Host and Pop Singer, Dies at 81

August 12, 2006
The New York Times
By TIM WEINER

Mike Douglas, the genial television host whose afternoon talk show was a beacon of popular culture in the 1960’s and 70’s, died yesterday in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. His death came on his birthday, a generation after his irony-free broadcast style began to pass from the screen. He was 81.

His wife of 62 years, Genevieve, confirmed his death to The Associated Press.

Everyone from Richard Nixon to the Rolling Stones showed up on “The Mike Douglas Show.” It had a run of more than two decades, beginning in 1961. At the height of its popularity, in the late 1960’s, it was one of the most watched shows on television.

About seven million people tuned in to the broadcast daily. They saw the pianists Liberace and Little Richard, Malcolm X and Barbra Streisand, and the Catskills comedian Totie Fields going goggled-eyed at the Kabuki-masked rocker Gene Simmons of Kiss. It was Robert Frost one day, Richard Pryor the next. The 60’s pop group the Turtles was seated next to Truman Capote.

And next to them sat Mr. Douglas, smiling and silver-tongued.

The show provided a stage for Bill Cosby and Jay Leno when they were up-and-coming performers. It always featured musicians, reflecting Mr. Douglas’s show business beginnings as a singer, and they ranged from Frank Sinatra to John Lennon.

Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono were Mr. Douglas’s guest hosts for one week in 1972, when viewers were treated to Mr. Douglas singing the Beatles tune “With a Little Help From My Friends,” interviews with radical leaders like Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party and Jerry Rubin of the Youth International Party, and Mr. Lennon playing his antiwar hymn “Imagine.”

The program also produced a pivotal moment in American political history: the creative mind behind the scenes at “The Mike Douglas Show” in the 1960’s, the producer Roger Ailes, became a crucial media adviser to Nixon in his successful run for president in 1968 after meeting him on the show. He went on to play a similar campaign role for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and is now chief executive of the Fox News Channel and chairman of Fox Television.

Mr. Douglas was not an interrogator like his television contemporary Mike Wallace, nor was he possessed of the cool of his late-night counterpart Johnny Carson. David Letterman, whose life as a daytime host was starting when Mr. Douglas’s was winding down, became in many respects the antithesis of Mr. Douglas.

Mr. Douglas usually served his guests soft questions, exuding good vibrations. Yet his program could make news. He offered Ralph Nader his first chance to question the safety of American automobiles on national television, and he let political figures from the far ends of the spectrum as well as the middle have their say.

His success was also a foreshadowing of the future: in an era before cable television, Mr. Douglas was not a creature of the networks. His show was a syndicated production of the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company and sold to about 200 local stations. It was the first syndicated television show to win an Emmy. Toward the end of his long run, Mr. Douglas was being paid $2 million a year, a salary probably exceeded on television at the time only by Carson.

At the height of his fame, Mr. Douglas said he was always thinking of how to make a housewife in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, happy. The secret of his success, he said, was simple: “I’m a square.”

Michael Delaney Dowd Jr. was born on Aug. 11, 1925 (some sources suggest earlier dates in the 1920’s) in Chicago, the son of a railway freight agent and a homemaker. He performed as a teenage crooner on a cruise ship that sailed the Great Lakes out of Chicago.

He moved to California after World War II and sang and recorded with the band of Kay Kyser, later appearing on “Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge,” a televised musical quiz show. (His was the lead voice on hits like “The Old Lamplighter” and “Ole Buttermilk Sky.”) He returned to Chicago as host of “Hi, Ladies,” a radio show aimed at housewives, but his career foundered in the 1950’s. He was singing in a piano bar when Westinghouse offered him his own television talk show in 1961.

“The Mike Douglas Show” began in Cleveland on a single station in December 1961. Within two years it was seen in Boston, Baltimore, San Francisco and Pittsburgh. The show moved to Philadelphia in 1965, making it easier to attract guests from New York.

Its fame increased. By 1967 it was the most popular show on daytime television; the 14 minutes of commercials on the 90-minute show produced about $10 million annually for its creators, and Mr. Douglas, his wife and their three daughters were living in a 30-room Tudor mansion on the Main Line outside Philadelphia. His ratings eventually declined in the 1970’s, and his long run ended in 1981.

In retirement Mr. Douglas wrote a memoir, “I’ll Be Right Back: Memories of TV’s Greatest Talk Show” (Simon & Schuster, 1999), and played golf. He fell ill from dehydration on a golf course a few weeks ago, his wife said. In addition to her, he is survived by their daughters Michele, Christine, and Kelly Anne, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“Mike is the glue,” his producer, Mr. Ailes, said in 1967, the year the show won its first of five Emmy Awards. “Without him the show would fall apart.” Another of his producers, Larry Rosen, called Mr. Douglas “a piece of clay — you can do anything with him.” It was meant as a tribute to a man who displayed an adaptable affability five times a week for 21 years.

    Mike Douglas, TV Host and Pop Singer, Dies at 81, NYT, 12.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/12/arts/television/12douglas.html?hp&ex=1155441600&en=2923d12630441d43&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Picture Tubes Are Fading Into the Past

August 7, 2006
The New York Times
By ERIC A. TAUB

The bulky, squarish, heavy picture tube, the standard television technology for more than 60 years, is heading for the dustbin of history much faster than anyone expected.

This year, the number of TV models in the United States that use glass cathode-ray tubes to produce an image has been reduced sharply. By next year, even fewer C.R.T. televisions will be made, and fewer retailers will sell them.

“After the holidays, the days of picture-tube TV’s are gone,” said Geoff Shavey, the TV buyer for Costco. “One year from now, we will not sell picture-tube TV’s.”

Costco, a discount warehouse chain, , has already cut its picture-tube offerings to three models this year, from 10 in 2005.

Instead, Costco and other retailers are selling growing numbers of wide-screen plasma and liquid-crystal display flat-panel TV’s, which are more expensive than traditional TV’s. But prices for both types continue to drop: 42-inch plasma TV’s can be bought for less than $2,000, and the smallest flat-panel sets will soon be fairly close in price to their tube counterparts.

Mr. Shavey said that a 32-inch wide-screen L.C.D. television was available for $700 at his stores, within striking distance of a tube set of similar size. But he added, “The demand for picture-tube TV’s is far off from what it was one year ago.”

One reason is that flat-panel TV’s make a strong design statement, prompting women to want to swap their old sets for sleeker ones, said Mike Vitelli, a senior vice president at Best Buy.

“For the first time in history, women care about the TV that comes in the house,” Mr. Vitelli said. “Men are not just getting permission to buy a flat-screen TV — they’re getting directed to do so.” Soon, he said, Best Buy will sell picture-tube TV’s only under its Insignia house label.

Consumer electronics companies also want out of the tube TV business, in part because profit margins have become so thin. The government has mandated that all TV’s eventually include a built-in digital tuner to receive over-the-air digital broadcasts, and while even picture-tube sets are being made compliant, manufacturers would rather switch to selling thin-panel TV’s, which can generate bigger profits.

“The end of picture-tube TV’s is accelerating faster than a lot of us expected,” said Randy Waynick, a senior vice president for Sony Electronics. The company, which offered 10 tube models two years ago, will pare that number to two next year, both of them wide screens. “Picture-tube TV sales reductions were far greater than forecast,” Mr. Waynick said.

Even if the profit margins were healthy, picture-tube TV’s would be ill-suited for a market that wants ever-larger screens. Picture-tube TV’s were once made as large as 40 inches corner to corner, but the units were the size of baby elephants, sometimes weighing hundreds of pounds and protruding several feet from the wall.

Panasonic is getting out of the picture-tube business altogether. A year ago, the company offered 30 picture-tube models in the United States; now it sells one, a 20-inch analog set. “This year will be the last year for Panasonic picture-tube TV’s,” said Andrew Nelkin, a Panasonic vice president.

Toshiba has cut its picture-tube models to 13 — from 35 last year — and expects the number in 2007 to be “significantly reduced,” said Scott Ramirez, a vice president of marketing. “Beyond 2007, the picture-tube business is very questionable for any company,” he said.

Picture-tube TV’s represented 78 percent of the market in 2004 but will account for only 54 percent this year, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, a trade group. In the same period, sales of flat-panel units have jumped from 12 percent of all TV’s sold to an expected 37 percent this year. Front- and rear-projection TV’s will account for about 9 percent of sales in 2006, according to the group.

“C.R.T. as a technology is fading out of the market,” said Sean Wargo, director of industry analysis for the association.

The ascendance of flat-panel TV’s signals another sea change for the TV industry: the switch from somewhat square screens to wide rectangular ones. The vast majority of flat-panel TV’s are built in a wide-screen shape that allows movies to fill all or most of the screen. More television series are being produced for this format, and consumers are growing more accustomed to viewing programs this way, electronics executives say. “A wide screen gives a much more impressive picture,” Mr. Shavey said.

New technologies seldom replace their predecessors entirely, and picture-tube TV’s will still be available for those who prefer them. But they will increasingly be available only in discount stores, where they will be sold under house brand names and by less prominent manufacturers like Funai, which owns the Symphonic, Sylvania and Emerson brands.

“We think there is a continual business for us in C.R.T. TV’s,” said Greg Bosler, executive vice president of the TTE Corporation, which owns the RCA brand. Mr. Bosler, who counts Wal-Mart as a key customer for its TV’s, noted that a 27-inch L.C.D. TV was still priced around $800, while an RCA digital picture-tube set of the same size could be bought for $350; an analog version was $240.

Even so, the company expects to double its flat-panel offerings next year. It will reduce its tube models to about 15 in 2007, from 26 this year.

    Picture Tubes Are Fading Into the Past, NYT, 7.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/technology/07tube.html

TV Is Now Interactive, Minus Images, on the Web

July 8, 2006
The New York Times
By MARIA ASPAN

Many "Rescue Me" viewers weren't happy, and they weren't being quiet about it.

The June 20 episode of the series, on FX, concluded with a violent sex scene between the main character, played by Denis Leary, and his estranged wife. Bloggers and other online fans protested, saying that the scene depicted — and appeared to endorse — rape.

So the executive producer of "Rescue Me," Peter Tolan, who had written the episode with Mr. Leary, resorted to an increasingly popular site for television writers who want to defend their editorial choices. Mr. Tolan went to the Internet.

In a June 21 posting on the discussion boards of the Web site Televisionwithoutpity.com Mr. Tolan tried to appease "Rescue Me" fans. "Welcome to writing a television drama," he wrote at the end of his lengthy first message. "We're trying to do something different," he explained. "Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don't."

His readers might have retorted, "Welcome to the Internet." Mr. Tolan is not the first television writer to defend his choices online, nor even the first to communicate via Television Without Pity.

But his attempt to reach out to his show's viewers reflects a growing awareness among television writers of their shows' online communities, as well as of a variety of ways to engage them.

Mr. Tolan did not respond to requests for an interview. But according to John Solberg, a spokesman for FX, Mr. Tolan now regrets trying to explain himself on Television Without Pity. Rather than defusing the controversy over the episode, his response "stirred it up more," Mr. Solberg said.

"If he had to do it again," Mr. Solberg continued, "he wouldn't do it."

Tara Ariano, a co-founder and co-editor of Television Without Pity, said she was surprised by the amount of attention Mr. Tolan's response had received. But she also sounded bemused by writers like him who debate their online critics without apparently anticipating any negative response. "Any way that you interact with your fans online is potentially reckless," she said. "When you write a script like that, you've got to expect some controversy."

That type of controversy might have been easier for writers and producers like Mr. Tolan to ignore in the past. Internet fans — and occasional writer interaction with them — have existed since the birth of the Internet, although until recently they were mostly confined to science-fiction or cult series, like "Star Trek" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

But in the age of widespread broadband access, iTunes video and video sites like Youtube.com, television viewers are migrating en masse to the Internet, looking not only to watch their favorite shows online but also for ways to discuss and engage with those shows.

As a result, the blogs, communities like livejournal.com and message boards devoted to television shows are becoming more popular — and mainstream — forums for viewer discussion and feedback. And the people behind the shows have taken note. "As fractured as the media market has become, the Internet has become a great means of rising above the noise," said James Duff, the creator and executive producer of "The Closer" on TNT.

"The Internet is going to turn television into the equivalent of AM radio," he predicted. "People will be talking about their shows and watching their shows in the same place."

Many writers welcome the increased feedback from online viewers. "Television writers really work in isolation," said Ronald D. Moore, who, with David Eick, is the executive producer of the Peabody Award-winning Sci-Fi Channel series "Battlestar Galactica."

"You have to fight this feeling that you're doing this show for yourself, your wife and your friends, who are the only people you watch it with," he said. "The Internet really changed the immediacy of the contact" between writers and viewers. Networks and producers are now cultivating that contact, often creating Internet-based content to accompany their series and attract online viewers.

Mr. Moore releases a podcast to accompany almost every new episode of "Battlestar Galactica," while Mr. Eick appears in mockumentary-style behind-the-scenes "video blogs" on the Sci-Fi Channel's Web site, www.scifi.com. Even highly rated, more mainstream series like ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" and NBC's "Office" have thriving online communities devoted to viewer discussion, which have yielded attempts by series creators to engage those communities via writers' blogs or cast members' pages on myspace.com.

Mr. Duff, who writes a blog about "The Closer" for TVGuide.com, said he focused primarily on the production, rather than on the specific episodes or storylines.

"I'm not using my blog to supplement the program," Mr. Duff said in an interview. "If you have to explain what you said in a television program, then you've left some stuff out."

According to Michael Ausiello, a senior writer for TV Guide and TVGuide.com, certain shows lend themselves more to attempts to cultivate Internet fandom than others. "Serialized shows succeed more," Mr. Ausiello said, citing ABC's "Lost" and "Veronica Mars," which is in transition from UPN to the new CW, as examples. "You're not going to see fans of the procedural shows up all night dissecting the shows," he said.

As more television show creators communicate with their online fans, they often discover that their shows already have passionate, and often critical, Internet communities. Television Without Pity, a site that Ms. Ariano began with Sarah D. Bunting and David T. Cole in 1998 as Dawsonswrap.com, is one of the most prominent and established of these forums, with about one million unique visitors a month, according to Ms. Ariano and Nielsen/NetRatings. The site blends irreverent commentary on episodes of shows ranging from "The Apprentice" to "The Sopranos" with an array of discussion boards devoted to almost every show ever broadcast.

Although many television writers may keep an eye on its boards, few get directly involved with the fans, Ms. Ariano said. Rob Thomas, the creator and executive producer of "Veronica Mars" and one of the few such "show runners" to post openly on the Web site's forums, said in an interview that Television Without Pity functioned "as a big focus group."

"They're very intense fans," he added, "the really devoted ones."

But, Mr. Thomas added ruefully, as viewer response to "Veronica Mars" became more critical in the show's second season, the experience of reading the site was "like being in a room with a thousand ex-girlfriends," he said.

"The new shine wore off," he added.

Mr. Thomas conceded that his awareness of the fans' reactions had occasionally influenced the way he wrote "Veronica Mars." Fans hated a second-season character played by Tessa Thompson, he said, leading him to overcompensate in an effort to make the character likable. "I feel like I sold out a little," Mr. Thomas said. "She became a little saintly by the end. If I had to do it over again, I'd leave her a little more complicated."

The consequences of Mr. Thomas's communication with his fans may be relatively unusual. But other writers and producers interviewed also said they regarded their fans with a mixture of gratitude and caution. Mr. Eick of "Battlestar Galactica" said online fandom could "be a very powerful weapon to help you develop the audience of your show."

"But," he continued, "you can't rely on it too heavily, or the show becomes too inside, and you end up marginalizing your larger audience."

Mr. Moore, who reads fan boards and occasionally responds to viewer concerns via his scifi.com blog, said he felt obligated to acknowledge the devotion of online "Galactica" fans. "I was a fan, too," he said. "I'm always impressed; they really pay attention. It forces you to deal with the criticism. It's easy to read the good stuff."

    TV Is Now Interactive, Minus Images, on the Web, NYT, 8.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/08/arts/television/08fans.html

Aaron Spelling, Prolific Television Producer, Dies at 83

June 24, 2006
The New York Times
By BILL CARTER

Aaron Spelling, the most prolific producer in American television, whose company generated hit shows over five decades, including "The Mod Squad," "Charlie's Angels," "The Love Boat," "Dynasty," "Beverly Hills, 90210," and "7th Heaven," died yesterday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 83.

The cause was complications from a stroke Mr. Spelling suffered last Sunday, his publicist, Kevin Sasaki, said.

Known as much for the wealth he accumulated in grinding out more than 200 television series and movies in his career, Mr. Spelling became a legendary figure in show business, a onetime bit actor who built one of the most successful production companies ever created, as well one of the most famously enormous mansions in Hollywood.

Mr. Spelling's career was defined by size and volume. He carved a place for himself in the Guinness Book of Records for the most hours of television produced: more than 3,000. At one time, in the 1970's and early 1980's, Mr. Spelling produced seven hours of programming a week on ABC, a third of that network's total prime-time schedule.

Mr. Spelling found success in almost every genre, including Westerns (his first series, in 1959, was "Johnny Ringo,") police shows ("Starsky and Hutch," "SWAT," "T. J. Hooker"), family drama ("Family," a rare critical success for Mr. Spelling), escapist anthology ("Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island"), glossy adult soap opera ("Dynasty") and youth-oriented soaps ("90210" and "Melrose Place").

For the most part his shows were as despised and denigrated by critics as they were loved by audiences. The New Yorker once labeled him a "schlock merchant." Mr. Spelling himself memorably described his oeuvre as "mind candy."

Nevertheless, he chafed under the critical onslaught, saying on several occasions, "It hurts." And in interviews he would often single out as his favored achievements the few programs and movies that brought him critical praise. He frequently mentioned his production role in the Emmy-winning HBO film on the AIDS crisis in America, "And the Band Played On."

But Mr. Spelling was not a producer who chased artistic success. He was able to amass a fortune mainly thanks to an ability to tap into mass taste. "Aaron has a legendary instinct for what the public wants to see," his onetime producing partner, Douglas Cramer, told The Los Angeles Times in 1996.

In the main, that instinct ran to campy or populist storytelling, most often featuring characters dripping with wealth. The trend began in Mr. Spelling's first success, "Burke's Law," in 1963, which starred Gene Barry as a detective who chased women and solved crimes while tooling around in his Rolls-Royce.

It reached its apogee in "Dynasty," a series about a billionaire oil family and their nasty, if well-coiffed, feuds. That series, which starred Joan Collins and Linda Evans, who created a much-talked-about television moment with a cat fight that wound up in a swimming pool, became widely mentioned as a metaphor for the "greed is good" years of America in the 1980's.

Mr. Spelling himself, though a self-effacing and extremely shy man in private, put his own vast wealth on display in the late 1980's when he and his wife, Candy, supervised the construction of their home in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles. The structure, which like his shows drew mostly scathing reviews, eventually contained 123 rooms over about 56,000 square feet. It was said to include a bowling alley, an ice rink and an entire wing devoted to his wife's wardrobe.

Mr. Spelling, who was often attended by a uniformed butler, also once owned a private railroad car and was known for trucking snow to Los Angeles in December to provide his two children with a white Christmas.

He defended the ostentation by saying he had worked hard for his success and had risen from truly dire conditions. Mr. Spelling was born in Dallas in 1923. His father was a Russian-immigrant tailor, who was good enough to have Hollywood stars like Eddie Cantor occasionally visit to pick up a suit (or so Mr. Spelling told it).

The family struggled with prejudice as a Jewish family in the South of that era. Mr. Spelling, a frail child, was so traumatized by bullying that at age 8 he psychosomatically lost the use of his legs for a year and was confined to bed. But that turned him into an avid reader (Twain was a favorite) and would-be writer.

He served in the Army Air Corps in World War II, entertaining on a troop ship and eventually writing for Stars and Stripes. A wound from a sniper left lasting damage to one hand. While recovering, he toured in the play "Old Mistress Mind," with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontaine.

Enrolling in Southern Methodist University on the G.I. Bill, Mr. Spelling took up performing comedy, and also wrote and directed plays. He tried New York for a few months but eventually headed west. A brief marriage to Janice Carruth ended in divorce.

In his early days in Hollywood, Mr. Spelling found work mainly as an actor. His credits included guest roles in "I Love Lucy" and "Dragnet." Mr. Spelling often said that because he was so small, thin and bug-eyed, he was usually cast as a pervert or drunk or some other kind of squirrelly character. Typical was his part as Weed Pindle in a 1956 episode of "Gunsmoke," written by Sam Peckinpah, later to gain fame as a film director.

He also appeared as a beggar in the film version of "Kismet." By then Mr. Spelling was married to his second wife, the actress Carolyn Jones. The "Kismet" experience finally soured him on acting, and he devoted himself to work behind the camera. The actor Dick Powell became a mentor, hiring Mr. Spelling as a writer and eventually a producer on his television anthology show "Zane Grey Theater."

That led to his first series, "Johnny Ringo" in 1959, followed by, among other series, "Burke's Law" in 1963, "Honey West" in 1966, "The Guns of Will Sonnet" in 1967 and his breakthrough, "The Mod Squad," in 1968.

Mr. Spelling, who had divorced Ms. Jones in 1964, married Candy Marer, a sometime model, in 1968. They had two children, Tori and Randy, both of whom went into acting, mainly on their father's shows. Tori became a teenage tabloid figure after she became a regular on "Beverly Hills, 90210."

In addition to his wife and children, Mr. Spelling is survived by a brother, Randy, of Los Angeles.

In 1989, Mr. Spelling's long run of control over the bulk of ABC's schedule finally came to a close. His career hit a nadir when the new executive in charge of programming at ABC, Brandon Stoddard, declared publicly that the network would no longer be "Aaron's Broadcasting Company."

Mr. Spelling, aghast at seeing a headline in the show business trade paper Variety saying "Spelling Dynasty Dead," found himself sinking into depression at the prospect of becoming one of the forgotten men of Hollywood after ruling so long as the king of prime time. "I can honestly say that I don't know what the networks want anymore," Mr. Spelling said at the time.

Indeed, the next television season not a single show in prime time bore the Spelling production logo. Then the Fox network called and asked if he would be interested in an idea they had about a soap opera set in high school. "Beverly Hills, 90210" appeared in 1990.

From that moment until his death, Mr. Spelling had at least two programs on network schedules. At the same time, his earlier series were playing in repeats almost endlessly and in almost every part of the world.

    Aaron Spelling, Prolific Television Producer, Dies at 83, NYT, 24.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/24/arts/television/24spelling.html?hp&ex=1151208000&en=3280b62ef5676e10&ei=5094&partner=homepage