I want my BBC ... A

Sir, I watch BBC America quite frequently, and
was quite upset on learning the cable company would be
removing BBCA from the lower numbers on the television
dials in March 2008. Moving the channel to upper
digital numbers. Meaning we would not be able
to view BBCA until we all have to go digital in 2009.
Our household is composed of 2 elderly retired
people on a limited budget, we only have basic and
standard channels so will lose the opportunity to
watch BBCA......

I telephoned Time Warner and was pretty much told to
go to a higher monthly bill so we could continue to
receive BBCA, in quite an abrupt manner, or just wait
until February 2009 to be able to watch BBCA again.
Do you have any inside information that would allow
you to confront Time Warner on behalf of us, the lower
channel people?

Shirley Nicholson

(Note: I'll have a story on this on Monday.--AB)

Roger Catlin: Should he stay or should he go?

Since I only read the Romenesko blogs about caffeine and idiots, I missed the item about my pal Roger Catlin, TV critic at the Hartford Courant, being offered a buyout. (I couldn't resist posting this screenshot of his blog, with the banner ad from the Connecticut Lottery floating, or gloating, above his mug.)

From "Women's Club" to the "Dollhouse"

I knew it wouldn't take long for Sarah Fain and Liz Craft, the Pembroke Hill grads who created "Women's Murder Club" for ABC, to find new employment inside the sprawling Twentieth TV complex. Craft and Fain, who have a long-term deal with Fox, were told that James Patterson and ABC were done with them on Monday. On Tuesday Fox offered them a project. On Wednesday Joss Whedon called.

Presenting the Women's Producers Club

Here it is, your chance to get up close with three women who helping reshape the face of television. Writers Sarah Fain and Liz Craft and filmmaker Sharon Liese -- who put four years into creating a WE documentary series that you need to see -- will be sitting with me for Q-and-A's in March at the Kansas City Public Library's beautiful Helzberg Auditorium.

The greening of Greensburg: Coming soon to a Discovery-owned channel near you

The top image is what Greensburg, Kansas, looked like after a F5 tornado wiped out 90 percent of the city's structures. The bottom image is what a Kansas City architecture firm that specializes in "green" design envisions for the future of this farm town. What Mother Nature had wrought, she could also give back in the form of alternative energy that could make the rebuit Greensburg an enviro-mecca someday. And chronicling this Extreme Makeover: Town Edition are the cameras of Pilgrim Films, which is producing some 30 hours of programming for Discovery, TLC, Science Channel and a new Discovery digital network called Planet Green.

Keep reading for an unabridged version of my story that appeared in Tuesday's Kansas City Star. And here are some videos (#1 ... #2) that I took there with the famous Unsteadicam.

Oscars: Second time's the charm for Stewart

When they announced Jon Stewart would host the Academy Awards for the second time in three years, some of us wondered what Jimmy Kimmel had done to so terribly offend ABC.

Read the rest at: www.kansascity.com | 02/24/2008 | Second time’s the charm for Stewart.

Seagal is back! (And why you should care)

On Oscars night Spike TV is airing “Urban Justice,” a 2007 direct-to-video fight-fest starring Steven Seagal as a violent man out for revenge after his son is killed. The once-bankable star hasn't had a movie released in theaters in half a decade. What's more, he's gotten old and fat, and for a while there seemed to care more about his band than the DTV flicks he kept churning out.

But online critics who bothered to watch “Urban Justice” have taken note of its straightforward pacing, merciful lack of conspiracy subplots and the seeming recognition by its star that when people sit down to watch a Seagal film, they expect to see him on the screen, not a stunt double whose dialogue is dubbed in later by a third actor.

Dennis Miller, hypocrite

Dennis Miller has been a favorite, and frequent, guest on Fox television and the Bill O'Reilly show. The two of them would take turns savagely critiquing the "ultra-liberal" NBC and speculating about how long General Electric would be able to remain in the entertainment business. Therefore, I was surprised to read in the Star this morning that Miller will be the host of a new game show called AMNESIA that will appear on... NBC starting this evening.

I don't think Miller has been funny in years, despite trying to reinvent himself periodically in many different venues. Somehow, despite these failures, he always manages to find somebody who will give him a new spot. He must work cheap.

Channel 5 news director ambushed

Those darned kids at the Pitch. One day they're superimposing yours truly into a homoerotic Olan Mills photo, the next day they're springing a Quraishi on Quraishi's boss!

Pretty funny, though. Say, has anyone heard from Sam Zeff lately? Who's operating that camera, anyway??

KMBC and KTKA are off the hook

Turns out Kansas City's and Topeka's ABC affiliates won't have to fork over that stupid penalty for airing a bare bottom during "NYPD Blue" — and if you're like me you're asking, "WHICH bare bottom on 'NYPD Blue'?" But let's leave that bit of insanity, uh, behind for now because we have a wrinkle in the case.

In a story ironically headlined FCC Says NYPD Blue Fines Will Stick, Kevin Martin, the FCC chairman whose every utterance is an argument for the agency's abolition, dropped the fines for seven stations, including KTKA and KMBC. As KMBC general manager C. Wayne Godsey pointed out — what was it, three years ago? — the complaint against his station was filed by some goody-two-shoes on the East Coast. Nobody in Kansas City complained, and thus KMBC was not subject to prosecution. Two stations, including KTKA, were exempted after the commission realized it had renewed their station licenses between the airing of the "NYPD Blue" episode and the time it issued the fine. In FCC-land, the postcard renewal is the statute of limitations. Oops!

"To my knowledge, the WGA did not place any sanctions on Leno"

After reading Dan McMahon's strange and almost incoherent letter, I
feel I need to say, "Huh?" Anyone, who watched Leno had a pox put on
them by Mr. McMahon, and also were accused of being scabs. Yet, as he
concluded his rant he states that he, too, watched Leno's show. So, am
I to gather, he also is a "scab" and he therefore, placed a "pox" on
himself? Considering the strike is over, and to my knowledge, the WGA
did not place any sanctions on Mr. Leno--I do believe, that this
tempestuous rant was not only ill-conceived, but rather childish.
(And, since I misplaced my Chants and Spells book, I'll refrain from
throwing a "pox" back at him, just to show that I could).

Pat McGraw

"Maybe not these guys, but somebody should oversee Big Media"

I'm with you about the boneheaded moves the FCC has made. But the
worry I have about media libertarianism is that there will be even
further media consolidation. I live in a town where Comcast is your
only choice (unless you count the Dish as a choice). But I hear there
are still towns in America where people actually have a choice of
media providers. If I could choose between Comcast and anything else
(sight unseen), believe me, it'd be the latter.

Personally, I've seen too much of the "free market will solve
everything" approach ending up screwing everybody but Big Business.
Maybe these guys aren't the right guys to monitor Big Media, but
somebody besides them certainly needs to.

John Cady
Ann Arbor, MI

"You are not helping any"

I have some issues with your article on the end of analogue tv. I will start with the technical stuff. “Subscription tv providers have already gone digital” is not entirely true. TWC’s basic and standard tiers are analogue, not digital. Your TWC/KMBC examples confused me and I work in the industry. After February, 09, KMBC’s digital signal will be seen in analogue on the TWC’s basic tier the same way we see KMBC’s analogue signal now. And, according to the trades, TWC will be required to carry KMBC’s digital signal on both their digital tier and converted to analogue on their basic tier for several years.

Groups involved in the DTV transition have been trying to educate people on how to use the QAM decoders on current digital tuners by explaining that digital and scrambled are not synonymous and the QAM decoders can receive non-scrambled digital signals. When you casually throw these terms around in explaining how the cheap converters one can purchase with the $40 coupons “descramble the digital signals”, you are not helping any.

I can’t believe you are encouraging multicasting. I guess if you watch mostly premium channel programming you don’t have any empathy to those who don’t choose to spend their money on premium channels and get their HD programming from the networks, which by the way, you can receive with a digital tv over cable without paying for the digital tier. Even one extra channel affects the HD channel. And you can’t have an HD channel if you are multicasting several channels.

DTV was created by the industry to get higher resolution signals to the consumer. Multicasting was not part of the original plan. The government has stepped in to get the transition completed without dragging on for years. Speaking for myself, I do remember the excitement the first time I powered up my first digital OTA tuner connected to my old analogue tv. I was surprised how much was already on in digital, how I was receiving it with rabbit ears, the clear picture without analogue cable’s snow. It was the most excitement I had felt since first getting cable tv. That old tv was quickly replaced with an HDTV.

Dave DeLeersnyder
UMKC Video Net

Dave: Actually, multicast WAS an original codec of ATSC, and
remains so to this day. I have no idea where you're getting that bit
of revisionist history from, nor what you mean by "the original plan"
— I mean, if you want to play that game, we can go back to when
Congress was envisioning an ANALOG standard for HDTV, a la NHK. As we
know, digital descrambling intervened courtesy of the satellite
industry, and the rest was history. Again a case of the market tail
wagging the FCC dog, which was my point.

As for the argument that one more DTV signal hampers the HDTV signal
... well, then you really are a good-enough-for-government type,
because the inflexibility of the ATSC creates just such a false
choice. Apple and others have been developing new video compression
methods that can squeeze 720p down to a fraction of the space it takes
up under ATSC, which would leave plenty of room for multicast,
datacast (I didn't even get into THAT), and even a second 720p. Of
course, ATSC would have to be revised to allow for that ... but my
guess is people will be receiving TV channels from their computer via
wireless home network (or TiVo) before the industry gets around to
changing the standard.

As for my improper use of the word "descramble," maybe I confused some
the engineers in the room, but I doubt anyone else knows a QAM from a
qualm. I think the idea that you have to pay to get TNT HD as opposed
to KMBC-DT is a common sense one that directly flows from the present
situation. I don't understand at all how these technical distinctions
you want me to make will make things simpler for my readers. They
read these chicken little forecasts and say, my gosh, what now? My
answer: Do nothing. And chalk up one more needless scare to the
government.

DTV confusion, "American Idol" depression

Chip Franklin and I discuss the No. 1 TV show and the story that is actually more overhyped than "Idol" on today's show.
Download KOGO20080218.mp3

The DTV transition: It's Y2K all over again

Not using HDTV

Eleven years and one month ago, I wrote my first Sunday feature for this newspaper, about an exciting new technology that would soon be sweeping the nation called digital television.

Well, DTV is here, but we're still waiting on the excitement.

Why are you critics so critical??

You are way off base on this article. I do not even know where to start. No where in your article did you happen to mention how good HDTV performance is or how antiquated our ancient NTSC system is.

Consumer demand for high quality HDTV performance is driving the DTV revolution, not the Federal Government analog shut off mandate. Somewhere around 20 Million HDTV sets were sold in 2007 alone, driven exclusively by the "private sector". Myself, I have sold thousands of HDTV sets and never one single time has a customer indicated they are making the purchase because they need to be prepared for the analog cut off date imposed by the feds. The reason people are buying all these HDTV sets is pretty simple, they want better performance and they are willing to pay for it. Some people actually do want superior audio and video quality believe it or not.

I also have a real problem with the concept of letting the majority (private sector) decide what technology I will be able to enjoy. The majority likes i-pods and hates Super Audio CDs. The majority loves Top 40 music and hates Blues and Jazz music. The majority thinks our 60 year old television broadcast standard is excellent and HDTV is a rip off. The majority thinks it is ridiculous to pay for satellite radio and FM is outstanding. The majority thinks McDonalds has the best hamburgers..........

For the first time in my life, I am going to have to take up for the federal government. If it takes a mandate from congress to speed up the HDTV broadcast industry, I am all for it. The coupons are a big joke and they are wasting billions of dollars but what else is new?

I just think you were way off base on this one. I do agree with many of your points but the article was way to negative and never once mentions that HDTV is actually a good thing.

Thanks.

Scott Huffman

Brian Ross cracks a case

More photos (if you dare)

As I reported in today's Kansas City Star, ABC's Brian Ross is going behind-the-scenes to examine the somewhat shady and undeniably gruesome work of molding dead bodies into wildly popular museum exhibits. It's a timely story for us because the company Ross is investigating is bringing "Bodies Revealed" to Kansas City in two weeks. Above, Ross with the self-promotey Gunther von Hagens, whose technique of "plasticizing" human cadavers set off the craze. It's von Hagens' competition, Premier Exhibitions, that Ross has some troubling goods on. Story's on the jump.

Winners and losers of the strike

 
Winners (top) and losers (bottom)

Television and movie writers are expected back at work Wednesday as the three-and-a-half-month work stoppage comes to an end, pending the (likely) ratification of a new three-year deal with the companies that run Hollywood. The deal won't be formalized until a vote of the 12,000-member Writers' Guild of America concludes next week. But it seems like a slam dunk.

Strike's over; now what?

Chip Franklin and I talked on the WGA's first day back on the job.
Download KOGO_20080213.mp3

"Jay Leno is a scab"

Jay leno is a scab — he is the big loser. A pox on those that watched his show during strike, for they too are scabs. Hooray for Dave who helped end the strike by getting an early deal to be a model for the others.
And do you really think Jay's writers were not helping him? Listen carefully to what Bill Maher said when he was on the show (yes, I watched also!) and to jay's awkward non-responses.

Dan McMahon

Reply: "After reading Dan McMahon's strange and almost incoherent letter..."