Penthouse 10

Today in History

In 1983, M*A*S*H became the most watched television program in history, as the final original episode of the fictitious, but uncommonly real, 4077th M*A*S*H (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) unit of the Korean conflict aired. An estimated 125-million people in the U.S. tuned in to see the broadcast on CBS. The program earned a 60.3 rating and a 77 percent share. According to Nielsen Media Research, the 60.3 rating was the average audience rating or the percent tuned to M*A*S*H during the average minute, while the share measured the percentage of TV households whose sets were turned on that night and were tuned to the 2 1/2 hour special of M*A*S*H. 

The TV version of M*A*S*H first aired on September 17, 1972 and followed the popular movie of the same title. Gary Burghoff was the only actor to take his movie role to TV. The movie had followed the novel, also of the same name, by author Richard Hooker, a doctor who had actually served in a M.A.S.H. unit in Korea. The 251 episodes of M*A*S*H will always be regarded as eleven years of television’s finest moments.

In 1940, the first televised basketball game was shown -- over W2XBS in New York City -- from Madison Square Garden. The game featured Fordham University and the University of Pittsburgh. Pitt won, 50-37.

NATPE Birthday To:

Maxine Bahns, Stephanie Beacham, Kelly Bishop, Charles Durning, Gilbert Gottfried, Robert Sean Leonard, Gavin MacLeod, Mercedes Ruehl and John Turturro.

Comedy Web block on TV

In an about-face from the trend of distributing branded TV programming to the Internet, Comedy Central is bringing original Web programming to late-night television viewers, the network said Monday…

Read more on HollywoodReporter.com.

Today in History

In 1986, the U.S. Senate approved telecasts of its debates on a trial basis.

In 1985, former vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro was seen in a TV commercial this day. She was seen in an ad for a diet soft drink.

DVDs on 02.27.07

At the Hotel (At the Hotel), Captain N: The Game Master (The Complete Series), Da Vinci's Inquest (Season 1), Dog the Bounty Hunter (The Best Of Season 3), The Doris Day Show (Season 4), The Flip Wilson Show (Best Of), Ghostbusters (Volume 1), Girlfriends (The Complete 1st Season), The Immortal (The Complete Series), Magnum, P.I. (The Complete 6th Season), Reno 911! (Reno's Most Wanted Uncensored), The Rockford Files (Season 3), The State Within - mini-series (The State Within).

NATPE Birthday To:

Adam Baldwin, Chelsea Clinton, Howard Hesseman, Kate Mara, Grant Show, Elizabeth Taylor and Joanne Woodward.

Today in History

In 1985, breaking with tradition, the TV show, Gimme a Break, was broadcast live before a studio audience. It was the first TV sitcom to be seen live since television’s Golden Age in the 1950s.

NATPE Birthday To:

Kristin Davis, Dakota Fanning, Peter Fonda and Patricia Richardson.

ABC to Spin Off Hit Series Grey's Anatomy

Among TV's most successful franchises are CSI, Law & Order, and...Grey's Anatomy? That's what ABC is hoping as it readies a potential spinoff of the hit series for a fall launch.

Read more on MediaWeek.com.

Today in History

In 1954, ABC radio’s popular Breakfast Club, program with longtime host, Don McNeill, was simulcast on TV beginning this day. The telecast of the show was a bomb, but the radio program went on to break records as the longest-running program on the air.

NATPE Birthday To:

John Ashton, Drew Barrymore, Rachel Dratch, Kyle MacLachlan, Jeri Ryan and Julie Walters.

NATPE Birthday To

LeVar Burton, Ice-T, William Katt and Barry Primus.

Today in History

In 1962, CBS bought the exclusive rights to college football games from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for an all-time high dollar figure of $10,200,000.

NATPE Birthday To

Claire Bloom, Matt Groening, Sherry Jackson and Jane Seymour.

Today in History

In 1962, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy conducted a televised tour of the White House.

NATPE Birthday To

Hugh Downs, Zach Galligan, Florence Henderson, Freddie Highmore and Pat O'Brien.

Veoh Pacts With YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Google

Veoh Networks, a startup online video technology and distribution company, has announced a slew of deals with several major Web video players, including YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Google, while also adding to its growing list of publishers, following the conclusion of an extensive beta testing period…

Read more on MediaWeek.com.

DVDs on 02.13.07

All in the Family (The Complete 6th Season), Ballykissangel (Series 5), Beauty and the Beast (The Complete 1st Season), Cobra (The Complete Series), Emergency! (Season 3), Fat Friends (Season 1), The Golden Girls (The Complete 7th Season), Grosse Pointe (The Complete Series), The Hills (The Complete 1st Season), Hustle (Season 2), The Last of the Mohicans - mini-series (Last of the Mohicans), Masters of Horror (Pelts - Dario Argento), Men Behaving Badly (The Complete Series), Reno 911! (Reno's Most Wanted Uncensored), Zoey 101 (Season 1).

NATPE Birthday To

Stockard Channing, Peter Gabriel, Kim Novak, George Segal, Jerry Springer and Mena Suvari.

MySpace Attacks VID Piracy

MySpace is expected to announce today that it is adopting a new video-filtering technology to keep copyright-infringing clips off the site.

The arrival of the system, which is being implemented as a "pilot program" immediately, comes amid mounting pressure from content companies on sites like YouTube to wipe their sites of illegally obtained film and television footage that users have uploaded.

Read more on HollywoodReporter.com.

NATPE Birthday To

Joe Don Baker, Josh Brolin, Christine Elise, Arsenio Hall, Joanna Kerns and Christina Ricci.

TV homes to jump 47% by '50, Nielsen forecasts

Television on the wane? Not according to a forecast released Wednesday by Nielsen Media Research, which projects that the nation's TV households will grow 47% to 163.7 million by 2050.

Nielsen pegged the number of television households in January at 111.4 million using Claritas demographic estimates. But armed with U.S. Census Bureau population estimates for the next several decades, Nielsen said there will be double-digit growth in TV households among blacks and triple-digit growth among Latino and Asian-American households...

Read more on HollywoodReporter.com.

Survey: $10 Billion Spent on Search Marketing in '06

Advertisers in North America laid out close to 10 billion dollars on search engine marketing in 2006, a year that saw a 62 percent spend increase versus 2005, according to an annual survey conducted by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization...

Read more on MediaWeek.com.

Today in History

In 1922, President Warren G. Harding had a radio installed in the White House.

In 1924, John Joseph Carty of the Bell Telephone System spoke in Chicago, IL. His speech was carried across the nation on the first coast-to-coast radio hookup. An estimated 50-million people heard the speech.

In 1985, The Dukes of Hazzard ended its 6-1/2 year run on CBS. The series was credited with using more stunt men than any other TV series in history. The show had used as many as eight cars per episode when the crash sequences got complicated.

NATPE Birthday To

Gary Coleman, Seth Green, John Grisham, Mary McCormack, Nick Nolte, Ryan Pinkston, Mary Steenburgen and Karle Warren.

Even With Rise of Online Vids, Kids Still Watching Tube

Contrary to the perception that the Internet is siphoning older kids away from television, a report by Magna Global analyzing Nielsen Media Research data shows that average 24-hour TV viewing by tweens 9-14 years old and teens 12-17 are stable compared to last year. The report also shows that TV viewing by younger kids 2-11 for the total day also is no different than a year ago, and is, in fact, higher than five years ago…

Read more on MediaWeek.com.

Today in History

In 1969, Tom Jones, ‘The Prince of Wales’, premiered on ABC after the network acquired the rights to the singing sensation’s popular United Kingdom show. The network paid a British production company an estimated $20 million for those rights.

NATPE Birthday To

Miguel Ferrer, Eddie Izzard, Ashton Kutcher, Tina Majorino and James Spader.

Wal-Mart launches video download service

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Tuesday introduced a test version of its new video download service, making it the first major retailer to offer such a service with the backing of all of Hollywood's big studios.

The service, available on Wal-Mart's Web site, lets users download movies or television episodes that they can watch on their computers or portable media players, and pits the No. 1 retailer against other downloading services, including Apple Inc.'s iTunes.

Read more on HollywoodReporter.com.

DVDs on 02.06.07

Anything But Love (Volume 1), Baywatch (Syndicated Season 3), Ben 10 (Season 1), Charlie and Lola (Volume 3), Charmed (The Complete 7th Season), Kate & Allie (Season 3), Mad About You (The 3rd Season), Teen Titans (Trouble In Tokyo), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Season 6 - Flash Forward).

NATPE Birthday To

Mike Farrell, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Megan Gallagher, Brandon Hammond, Kathy Najimy, Rip Torn and Michael Tucker.

Leno’s Pitch to America from NATPE ‘07

Once again, Leno’s Pitch to America team were at NATPE ’07 taking pitches from attendees. Watch this!

Decision '08 already forcing big decisions

The campaign shouting for 2008 has begun, and that has TV news outlets scrambling to step up their coverage despite Election Day being a full 21 months away.

"We're almost a year earlier than normal," MSNBC vp programming Bill Wolff says. That's a marked change from previous years, when it would be about a year before the election that things would start to pop. Part of it is the accelerated primary schedule -- with Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina going to the polls in January, followed Feb. 5 by primaries in more than a dozen other states including possibly California and Florida.

Read more on HollywoodReporter.com.

Today in History

In 1969, for one of the few times in television history, a scheduled series (usually 13 or 26 weeks of shows) turned into a one-night wonder. ABC premiered Turn On, hosted by Tim Conway, a show similar to NBC’s Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. TV critics called the show, “offbeat and distasteful.” It never aired again.

NATPE Birthday To

Stephen J. Cannell, Stuart Damon, Christopher Guest, Barbara Hershey, Laura Linney, Tim Meadows, Charlotte Rampling and Jeremy Sumpter.

Les Eisner Rejoins Lippin Group

Les Eisner has rejoined The Lippin Group, an international entertainment marketing and public relations firm, as executive vice president.

Based in Los Angeles, Eisner will be responsible for overseeing corporate communications and public relations campaigns for television, film and new media clients in the U.S. and abroad.  He will also have management responsibilities within the company, reporting to CEO Dick Lippin… Read more on BroadcastingCable.com

NATPE Birthday To

Sherilyn Fenn, Michael C. Hall, Sherman Hemsley, Brian Krause, Garrett Morris, Bill Mumy and Pauly Shore.