I Am A TV Junkie

Report: Comcast in Talks to Buy NBC-Universal

It's late, I'm tired, so I'm sending you over to read Sharon Waxman's report at TheWrap.com, which is also home to our friend and TV-MoJoe blogger Joseph Adalian, who I'm sure will be following this story like a paparazzi follows Britney.

Apparently GE is tired of the network weighing down their balance sheet. Shoulda thought about that when you made a show marketer your programming chief. Stupid move, that was.

I'll keep you in the loop.

Former Carson Tonight Show Producer Lassally: NBC Tarnished the Brand

He says to Broadcasting & Cable's Ben Grossman, "“It doesn't feel good to me at all," discussing the Leno 10 pm move.

Doesn't feel good to me. Seems to feel great to Sucker Zucker and Silverman. At least as far as they're letting on.

Of course, for those of us concerned about TV as a whole and not just the NBC-Uni financial statement, it feels like NBC is runnin' scared because their current class of clowns can't figure out how to make fictional shows that people want to watch.

Has anyone suggested to Jeff Immelt that he needs to consider grabbing the reigns and start firing and hiring?

Because if he doesn't do something, and soon, there won't be an NBC for him to consider.

Period.

Fox V. GE -- Immelt Comments, O'Reilly Fumes, Murdoch Intervenes, But ...

... does Rupert Murdoch want this fight? Does he? Because I have to think that there's a whole lot of Murdoch/Newscorp stuff that can be brought up if O'Reilly really wants to start this.

Reuters:

Bill O'Reilly, who hosts a show on U.S. news channel Fox News, is mounting an "extraordinary televised assault" on Jeffrey Immelt, the chief executive of General Electric, the Washington Post reported on its Web site on Monday.

On the surface, O'Reilly's charges revolve around GE's history of doing business with Iran, the newspaper reported.

But the attacks grow out of "an increasingly bitter feud between O'Reilly and the company's high-profile subsidiary, NBC," it said.

About Our MILF Island Campaign

Facebook page is at this link.

I've said this in email but not yet on the blog ... if Jeff Zucker were as smart as everyone thinks he is, he would have had a 90-minute MILF Island special to run in the SNL timeslot on Saturday and a two-hour unrated DVD ready for Tuesday release on Amazon and at your local retailer.

But he didn't.

Too bad, so sad, it would have been nice for the GE bottom line, which isn't doing too well according to the business sections of every paper in America.

And yes, it was a lot of fun getting a quote from MILF Island host Rob Huebel.

I Predict Large Problems Ahead for NBC News re: Dateline's To Catch a Predator

Whta I see is a perfect storm of litigation that I can't imagine will not taint the enterprise and lead to payouts and cancellation.

From Paul Gough at the Reporter:

"Dateline NBC" denied Wednesday an Esquire article's claim that its "To Catch a Predator" producers tried to manipulate Texas police officers into arresting a D.A. who killed himself when confronted by police at his home last year.

Meanwhile, NBC is facing a $105 million federal lawsuit filed by the man's sister as well as a lawsuit by a former producer who said she was fired because she questioned the "Predator" lawsuit on ethical grounds. ABC News also confirmed Wednesday that its newsmagazine "20/20" was conducting an investigation into the death of Kaufman County prosecutor Bill Conradt and the role of "Dateline" in it.

Can I just say that this would not be a problem at all if Dateline were reporting the news instead of trying to make the news. There's so much going on in our world that NBC, a division of defense contractor GE, doesn not want to see make air. So, instead, they do these true crime stories where neither themselves or their corporate colleagues have any stake and try to pass it off as news.

As long as the news division is reporting on individuals and not organizations or companies or the government, they can't get themselves into trouble with their affiliated business enterprises. And it makes us feel like they are still providing a news function, which of course they are not.

For example, a woman who runs over her husband in the parking lot over and over because he cheated on her is safe. A woman who runs over her husband because her brakes, made by Car Company A that advertises on NBC isn't safe. A woman who runs over her husband in a Humvee in Iraq because a roadside bomb has pitched her off the road really isn't safe because it questions the intelligence of the war for which NBC's parent company is providing weapons systems.

Maybe the pending litigation will push all the news divisions back to what they are supposed to be doing, reporting the news that is important to the functioning of our government.