The call is coming from inside the house
At some point in the coming weeks, TRL murderer MTV will let go a huge portion of its staff as parent Viacom goes the cost-cutting route. Now there are rumors floating at Gawker that VH1 might get in on the firing action.
And this just in to Jossip: Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and CMT will also see sizable firings as well. We're told a "360 degree" layoff strategy is in the works, with "around Christmas" cited as a timeline. [Photo: Webshots]
Hope you've cleared your schedules for an Obamarafic night: At 8:00 p.m. Barack will be giving a 30-minute infomercial/speech/nobody knows on CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and Fox. He will also be the guest on The Daily Show tonight, which runs later but should give Jon Stewart's team enough time to scramble together a couple questions regarding this momentous power play.
But what stations were left out of the love-in?
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We wagered early on that Chocolate News was going to be terrible. Though we'll hate to see David Alan Grier without work yet again, it feels good to be right.
Surprisingly, the Afrocentric fake news show's premiere numbers were relatively large. According to the Nielsen ratings, 2.2 million viewers tuned into the debut episode last week, a million more than had watched the hit Colbert Report's first episode. Now if only Chocolate News' content could keep up with Colbert's.
As we said in our original post on CN, Grier is far too theatrical an actor for his part, that of "Dag," a mouthy, ballsy newscaster out to slaughter sacred cows in the black community. Occasionally he's funny, but most of the time he's just over the top and irritating.
That said, though, Chocolate News' biggest liability isn't Dag. In fact, even if Grier toned down his act, or was replaced with a more appropriate host, CN would still be difficult to watch. That's because, frankly, it's rarely funny. And occasionally, it's downright offensive.
Comedy Central's first attempt at black (as in African American) comedy following Dave Chappelle's untimely 2006 departure, Chocolate News, premieres tomorrow night. In the same vein as prime time heavyweights The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, Chocolate News will attempt to mock news of the day with a wry, liberal bent. From what I've seen, it's not going to work.
Have you heard? South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have exec-produced a new series for Comedy Central called Kenny vs. Spencer. The result, as far as we can tell, is a comedy-slash-reality show dedicated to fostering unnecessary competition between friends as part of an effort to score cheap laughs/ratings. (Just like they do on The Hills!)
Comedy Central has John Stewart for the 2010 election, but maybe not much longer. The network renewed Stewart’s contract for two years, but wasn't able to extend him for Indecision 2012.
Broadcasting & Cable reports:
The length of the extension coincides with the 2010 expiration of David Letterman’s deal at CBS, which will fuel the speculation that the Daily Show host and Comedy franchise player could be in line to take over at CBS if Letterman decides to step away after his current deal is up.
Why use the passive voice? Broadcast & Cable is speculating that CBS will close in on Stewart after Letterman retires.
As for Comedy Central, they always Steve Colbert. Of course, that's assuming that his run for president isn’t a thinly veiled publicity campaign for his new book and he’s still available.
Viacom and Comedy Central announced they'll be launching a new site exclusively geared towards placating avid watchers of The Daily Show. The upcoming website will boast over 13,000 all-access video clips, representing roughly "every minute of the show since its 1999 inception."
Die-hard Jon Stewart fans plan to immediately voice their approval by smoking copious amounts of pot, bitching about the deplorable state of affairs in this country, and watching 125 straight hours of the the online footage* instead of writing their NYU term papers.
*Or up until the point where they get "sufficiently creeped out" by the size of Stewart's bulbous head.
• Nicolas Cage finds a guy wearing nothing but a leather jacket breaking into his house. The perpetrator, who was apprehended at the scene, is suspected to be the only known individual who's conceivably weirder than Nicolas Cage.
• Maybe-murderer Phil Spector seeks new lawyers for retrial. And VH1 just found the concept behind its next reality show.
• The upcoming season of I Love New York 2 will feature all the usual suspects: drunks, crazies, gays. The clincher? This time, they've also managed to round up a few midgets.
• Rumor has it Lindsay Lohan is planning on going back to school, because she "always wanted to have that college experience." Because, if there's anyone who has yet to experience the phenomenon of late nights, week-long benders and latent promiscuity, it's definitely Lindsay.
• Comedy Central continues to cannibalize The Daily Show, awards Demetri Martin his own show.
• Calling all crossword junkies: what's an offensive 6-letter word for black person?
With Jon Stewart's contract with The Daily Show up in 2008, it's only a matter of time before the (fairly lucrative) offers start pouring in. And Jeff Zucker is the first to toss his hat into the ring, wooing Stewart with a romantic dinner, an NBC tote bag and, potentially, an offer to take over Conan O'Brien's soon-to-be former job as host of Late Night.
NBC Universal President/Chief Executive Jeff Zucker and NBC Entertainment/Universal Media Studios Co-Chair Marc Graboff recently wined and dined the satirical news anchor and his agent, James Dixon.
According to a network source, Zucker and Graboff didn’t focus on pitching any specific role at the dinner meeting. “They just made their interest known in finding a way to do business together if Jon was ever available,” says the source, who categorized the talks as “exploratory.”
Hopefully, there is where our coverage of media bowling ends. Last time, it was Josh Stein, of Gawker travel blog Gridskipper, whose face painting caught our attention. Now it's the Comedy Central pizza man, who chimes in to remind everyone that CC "KICKED GAWKER'S BUTTS BY 200 POINTS" last night.
Though, this note grabbed our eye:
We're happy to report that the Comedy Central bowling team (which includes no blog writers — we would have left Logo out of it, personally) …
Is that because Logo staffers have limp wrists and can't throw a ball worth a four-year-old girl in phys ed? Or because their bowling shoes were slicker than your average?
Goodbye Kendrick Reid. We hear as part of Viacom's job cuts, Comedy Central's chief graphic designer is among the casualties. He was the man in charge of branding efforts for all of CC. He joined the company in 2000 to help spearhead the network's reshaping. And, naturally, he's repaid with a firing squad.* Cheers.
* Update: We hear Ken was let go in person by boss-slash-friend Peter Risafi, according to a well-placed source.
Update 2: Comedy Central's PR department checks in with this statement: "Please note that your item today on Kendrick Reid is inaccurate. Kendrick’s leaving the company has nothing to do with the recent layoffs at MTVN. Months ago he started a transition to work with Comedy Central as a consultant in order to have the flexibility to work on the launch of Comedy Central International channels and on other outside projects." Spin makes you dizzy, doesn't it?
It was the media gimmick of the week that we've done our best to avoid: Stephen Colbert guesting on The O'Reilly Factor, and Bill O'Reilly guesting on The Colbert Report. All. on. the. same. day. Can you believe?
Well it went down last night, thanks to the publicity hopeful hacks at Fox News and Comedy Central. For the most part, their ploy worked: plenty of press from media crits as well as mainstream outlets.
And, dammit, us too.
As Intern Wendy reports, there wasn't terribly much at hand worth discussing, but in case you're a fifth grade teacher looking to turn this escapade into a class lesson, here are some notes:
• Fox News is more than willing to humiliate its hosts in order to pimp for ratings. When Shepard Smith did his eagle impression (complete with squawks and flapping arms) in honor of Colbert, it confirmed that O’Reilly was toast. It’s so big, that it’s on the main page of foxnews.com (right next to the headlines about Kim Jong Il and Pregnant Girls Gone Insane).
• O’Reilly is so baffled by this irony thing, that he had two analysts on after Colbert’s appearance to try to explain what just happened. They didn’t get it, either.
• O’Reilly refused to tell Colbert where he gets his strength from: Jesus Christ or Pat Robertson’s energy shakes.
• It actually is possible to get a mock-up nativity calendar of Fox News personalities, though none of them could make the cut as an angel (that honor went to Anderson Cooper).
• O'Reilly is convinced that NBC is destroying America more than activist judges and illegal immigration, which certainly explains Fox's 'Til Death Trading Spouses.
• Give decent swag, or you’ll be forced to steal it. While Colbert gave O’Reilly two lovely portraits of himself (one of which was Photoshopped as a dominatrix), O’Reilly forced Colbert to steal a lousy microwave from Factor’s green room as a souvenir.
Grown ups are fun.
After the jump, Part 2 of this twosome's pairing.
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It's only Monday and already we've got a slew of media congloms teaming up for this week's stab at synergy.
Reuters and Yahoo paired up to let citizen journalists pollute the Internet with their Razr photos that are better suited for CollegeHumor.com. Comedy Central hops into bed with Amp'd Mobile to take an animated series built for cell phones to the broadcast airwaves. And Fox News is rubbing crotches with, uh, Yahoo's finance unit to syndicate Fox's business programming and deliver web-only clips. It'll be called Fox Business Now, which is like Disney-owned subscription-only broadband video news network ABC News Now, except it'll be seen by more than just the newsroom staff.
All of which is very excited, for the 16 people who carry Blackberrys, Treos, Sidekicks, Razrs, iPods, tablet PCs with EVDO broadband cards, and crack.
• Comedy Central bites most generous hand. A Viacom vs. Google turf war? [NYT]
• 60 Minutes hope new flashy colors will attract younger audiences. [TVSquad]
• Cosmo may have its 50 eligible bachelors (half gay), but we're far more interested in the FICO scores of BusinessWeek's Top 50 Entrepreneuers. [BW]
• Despite an order of three more scripts, Studio 60 looks to be the next on NBC's chopping block. How 30 Rock flew under the radar is anyone's guess. [Fox 411]
• Those NBC Universal cuts, point by point. [Variety]
• Katie Couric disclosed she donated money to Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease charity so nobody could bring it up later to bash her for keeping a secret. [Public Eye]
• Demi Moore provocateur and photog Steve Sands files suit against the NYPD for stripping him of his press credentials. A public service, indeed. [Radar]
Today's Page Six only offered a glimpse into the horror Post-It Mandy Stadtmiller suffered at the, ahem, "hand" of Andy Dick at William Shatner's Comedy Central roast. Mandy offers more details on her blog:
"I was doing it because I was desperately trying to tie the show together like a fisherman with tuna, and you're a little piece of fresh tuna," Andy Dick told Stadtmiller. "But thanks for asking. Do you want me to lick your face now?"
Ed note: My right hand is recovering quite nicely, thanks for your concern. And the skin was not broken so my doctor friends assure me that I am probably "not too AIDS-y." Their words. My recording of this incident is so ridiculous that all I can tell you is that I'm strongly considering doing a dramatic re-enactment at Mo's on Thursday night so people can fully appreciate the experience of, say, this extended cut:
"I was doing it because I was desperately trying to tie the show together like a fisherman with tuna, and you're a little piece of fresh tuna, f—ing bring my net in, tie it all together, tie it together like a throughline, like I'll lick you, I'll lick him, I'll lick her, I'll lick him. It was me trying to tie it all together. You know what? I was giving that to the editor. That was my gift to the editor, you're welcome if they can tie that together then they did my job because I gave it to them. If they didn't then f— it, you know what whatever. That's it. But thanks for asking. But thanks for asking. Do you want me to lick your face now? Do you want me to lick your c—? Do you want me to lick your c—? Do you want me to lick your – bye bye."
We're awaiting the MP3 download.
And why did he go on his licking spree? [Bloggy McBlogalot]
Comedy Central is the latest victim to be claimed by Cruise control. Tom Cruise, the bad humor man, ordered the network to cancel the scheduled re-run of "Trapped in the Closet." This Scientology unfriendly episode caused fellow Scientologist Isaac Hayes to quit the show while reminding us (as if we needed it) that Cruise is closeted homo.
And because people refuse to stop putting this guy in movies, he had the Paramount power of Mission Impossible: 3 to throw around. Cruise threatened to boycott the premiere of MI3 and to cancel all publicity for the movie if Comedy Central producers didn't pull the show.
(Which would have spared us the photos of him dragging around his 14 month pregnant girlfriend, who, as you remember, filmed a sex scene for her movie Thank You for Smoking that mysteriously disappeared.)
This is of course only further proof that the collapse of Radar was wholly based on Tom's threats to have his alien gods impregnate the female staffers and lock Maer Roshan in a closet.
HI EXCLUSIVE! Scientologist Tom Cruise Blackmails Viacom [Inside Hollywood]
CRUISE CONTROL SCARES 'PARK' [Page Six]
• As though you could read something funnier than Jossip, Comedy Central tries its hand at the internet. [LAT]
• James Risen doesn’t want to be famous; Jon Friedman asks: yo, whattup with that? [Media Web]
• David Letterman vs. Bill O’Reilly just wasn’t enough in the liberal/conservative war. Now we have government vs. media. Again. [National Journal]
• Now that she’s served her time, ankle bracelet and all, Martha Stewart's appeal gets denied. [AP News]
• Quick, call New York magazine — California had a JT LeRoy spotting. [Fishbowl L.A]
Last Monday, New York looked like every other headline with Howard Stern on the cover. This week, as we continue our New York for New Yorkers round-up that celebrates our waning attention span, we see Adam Moss & Co. are ringing in the holiday spirit with everyone's favorite means of journalism: the listicle. Intern Wendy sums up the glossy pages so you know what, and where, to click.
• The theme to this week's New York: laziness! Yup, 'tis the season to get lazy, and do that pesky "awards" issue. After a lengthy justification (read: definition) of what they consider to be culturally elite, they fire off eight lists of "winners." Rather than do a recap, let's just say it's the usual suspects in the usual categories. If you choose to read them and feel insignificant afterwards…don't say we didn't warn you. [The Culture Elite 2005]
• Keeping with the "lazy" theme, there's yet another article about Rudy Giuliani and John McCain's chances if they run for president. The best thing they both having going for them? Unlike the current resident of the White House, both have actual wartime experience and can put a complete sentence together. The article has complete sentences, too. [N.Y.'s Favorite Republicans]
• Colin Harrison tells the heartwarming story of what a pain in the ass it was taking in his wife's ill grandmother. It ends happily when, after granny finally kicks the bucket, they at least got a brownstone and a baby out of the deal. [The Deal We Made for the Good Life]
• As if we need another reason (besides bird flu) not to go to Brooklyn: There's not enough Pabst Blue Ribbon for the "working class shit-beer connoisseur." [The Great Crap-Beer Drought]
• Laziness also reigns at Comedy Central. Rather than actually come up with a creative replacement for Chapelle Show, just repackage what you do have and call it a "wake." [Dearly Departed Chappelle]
• Vanity Fair staffers know how to party! Not only can they scarf chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten's "fishy liver-filled condom" flavored dumplings, they can piss off Graydon Carter, who hates the snooty chef. [Holiday Forgiveness for Jean-Georges]
• Daniel Maurer fills you in on all the parties you're not invited to. [The State of the Holiday Party]
• Tiny Living gives you a tiny list of tiny, overpriced things you can buy for your tiny, overpriced apartment. [Ask Shop Clerk]
Table of Contents [New York]
Related: All New York magazine coverage
Intern Molly is fucked. After weeks of painstakingly reviewing David Spade's attempt at growing facial hair that is The Showbiz Show comes news that, despite her attempts to have it axed from Comedy Central's line up, it's being renewed. For 13 weeks.
Millions agree. Hollywood had it coming and David Spade is just getting started. COMEDY CENTRAL has ordered a second season of the weekly satire, ³The Showbiz Show with David Spade,² it was announced today by Lauren Corrao, executive vice president of original programming and development. The second season of ³The Showbiz Show with David Spade² will premiere on March 23, 2006 and consist of 13 episodes.
The full release, and Intern Molly's motivation to find a new gig, after the jump.
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• Jann Wenner is on the hunt for a new COO, but that doesn't mean ("officially") he's putting Wenner Media up for sale. But god, how we wish he would. [WWD]
• Charlie Gibson would've been a part of the new World News Tonight, be wanted a three-year deal while ABC News prez David Westin was only signing 2-year gigs. [NYT]
• Katie Couric is expected to deliver a decision to Sean McManus (err, Les Moonves?) about whether she'll torment CBS's evening news viewers with chipper chatter for the next couple years. [NYP]
• Rolling Stone's newest inductee, political scribe Matt Taibbi, is brining the "gonzo" to the Wenner camp. [WaPo]
• The New York Times' $410 million purchase is finally about to .. do something. About.com is readying itself for a relaunch, which hopefully will explain to advertisers (and NYT's investors) what the hell makes it worth so much. [DM News]
• Thousands and thousands of words dedicated to the process of how Defamer's Mark Lisanti creates headlines. Riveting journalism. [Los Angeles Magazine]
• Throwing Dave Chappelle's decision to talk away from Comedy Central back in his face, the network plans to air as-yet unseen episodes to comprise the third season of Chappelle's Show amassed from sketches and other clips they've hung on to the copyrights for. [MediaWeek]
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