The CW is at a crossroads. Launched in 2006 by both CBS and Warner Bros, Nexstar Media Group is now the majority owner of America’s fifth broadcast network. A lot of The CW’s legacy shows — Supernatural, Batwoman, Charmed, Legends of Tomorrow — have been canceled. Longtime network head Mark Pedowitz has retired. The search was on
Many of the TV icons I grew up with are dropping like flies. Poor Tony Dow, for example. The Leave it to Beaver brother clings to life after already being declared dead in many premature on-line reports. It’s wonderful, then, to celebrate the impressive and productive longevity of Norman Lear. The producers of such shows
Again, thank you, Canadian networks, for once again not importing and simulcasting Live From in Front of a Studio Audience: Diff’rent Strokes and The Facts of Life. This allows those of us living north of the border to enjoy an added bonus ABC will add to Tuesday night’s special. Once again, the Disney-owned ABC network
How into TV from the ’80s is Jimmy Kimmel? He’s this into it as he told reporters last week in a conference call for Live From in Front of a Studio Audience: The Facts of Life and Diff’rent Strokes (airing Tuesday on ABC). “Many years ago, Gary Coleman was selling a pair of his pants
The situation with situation comedies today is no laughing matter. When the news shows for fall were announced this spring, there were few comedies on the list – and one was a reboot of The Wonder Years. The best new comedies that are made today, many for streaming services, could compete for awards as dramas,
The Golden Globes has long been dismissed as a Fake Awards show, run by an elite mob of elusive hacks who give statues out to the highest bidders. That hasn’t stopped viewers from tuning in each year — in fact, The Globes viewership has stayed steady while Oscar and Emmy viewership has seen steep declines
I was just starting university in 1977 when a strange little show became something of an obsession: Fernwood 2Nite. It was spun-off from the equally odd and hilarious Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman with TV comedy legend Norman Lear in on both productions. Alan Thicke was among the Fernwood producers. The series mocked local, small-market TV
By the time I started covering television in the mid-’80s, one of the titans of the industry was already switching sides — Fred Silverman. The native New Yorker, who passed away Thursday at 82, did what nobody before or since has ever accomplished — he was the top programming exec at each one of the