PASADENA, CA–First question at CBS president Nina Tassler’s executive session: what up with Charlie Sheen.
Tassler knew that was coming and had a joke about knowing it was coming ready. Then she got serious. “He knows the level of concern we have,” she said. She mentioned that Sheen is a father and she has concerns on a personal level. She hinted that the ball was in Warner Bros. court and that the Studio will have to straighten out their star. The bottom line, she maintaiined, is that “right now the show continues to be as successful as ever and everything continues as planned.”
Sheen has become the subject of ridicule again on the late night talk shows. Leno goofed on reports that Sheen took three hookers to Vegas last weekend. “Do you know how dangerous that is?” he said. “For the hookers?” “CBS announced that Charlie Sheen wasn’t on the set of Two and a Half Men because he had an ear infection,” chimed in Craig Ferguson. “I get the feeling that CBS publicists just stopped trying.”
It was suggested later in the scrum that Sheen would have been fired from just about any other job by now. “For showing up to work?” she shot back.
The veteran TV executive was also asked about the Canadian-produced cop show Flashpoint. This winter, the four-year-old series is pulling 1.5 million viewers a week in Canada out of simulcast. When will be reappear on CBS? Tassler was vague as usual, praising the show as a good “utility player” that performs well where ever CBS puts it. She said she has six episodes on the shelf and will likely air them this summer. CBS has an option for more, she added. It was hardly a ringing endorsement, but that’s how Tassler has always been about Flashpoint, playing poker with critics and keeping the price where she likes it on this series.
I asked Tassler in the scrum if she was disappointed that Letterman is back losing to Leno despite all the self inflicted turmoil at NBC. We love Dave, said Tassler, and look at all the competition in late night; it’s no longer just about Dave and Jay.
Tassler was non committal, too, on S#*! My Dad Says, another show that does better on CTV than it does on CBS. Tassler used phrases like “we still have a ways to go,” and “there are more things we cal do.” She was happy to see Jean Smart in a short story arc.Will it be back? “Everything is up for grabs in May,” she says.
CBS brags about having the top five new shows this year but has been slow with the pick ups. Even Hawaii FIVE-0 still does not have an order for next year.
CBS tends to nurture shows and build them slowly into hits over several seasons. NCIS, a bigger hit than ever in Season Eight, is a good example. Tassler was asked how things were going with Mark Harmon’s contract extension. Tassler dodged but suggested CBS would make every effort to bring him back for Year Nine.
