More non-cartoons coming to Cartoon Network

As I reported earlier this year, Adult Swim has seen some success picking up quirky British sitcoms that didn't quite work anywhere else on cable except for brief plays on BBC America. The fact that they aren't cartoons meant little to Adult Swim head honcho Mike Lazzo, who felt they hit the same part of the funnybone as "Robot Chicken" (and for that matter, the non-animated "Tim and Eric's").

Well, now Cartoon Network is in the swim, so to speak. And they're picking up original, hourlong series. My my. Read on ...

Cartoon Network Picks Up First Two Live-Action Series

Tower Prep and Unnatural History Greenlit to One Hour Series

Cartoon Network has picked up thirteen episodes of two hour-long original, scripted live-action series, Tower Prep and Warner Horizon Television’s Unnatural History. Production on the network’s first-ever hour-long action series is slated to begin in January 2010. Tower Prep is an action thriller telling the story of a rebellious teen, Ian (Drew Van Acker), who wakes up one morning to find himself trapped at a mysterious prep school focused on tapping into the "unique potential" of its students. Ian forms a secret group with fellow students CJ (Elise Gatien), Gabe (Ryan Pinkston) and Suki (Dyana Liu) as they search for answers to where they are and how to get home. The pilot was executive-produced and written by Paul Dini (Lost, Batman: Arkham Asylum), with Terry McDonough (Breaking Bad, The Street) directing. The series will be produced out of Cartoon Network Studios in Burbank, CA, in association with Dolphin Entertainment.

Unnatural History is an action-packed mystery series centering on Henry Griffin (Kevin G. Schmidt), a teenager with exceptional skills acquired through years of globe-trotting with his anthropologist parents. Shipped off to a high school in Washington D.C., Henry and his smooth-talking cousin Jasper (Jordan Gavaris) find themselves wrapped up in mysteries revolving around the national museum. Mike Werb (Face/Off, The Mask) created the series and wrote the pilot, which was directed by Emmy® Award winner Mikael Salomon (Band of Brothers, The Andromeda Strain, The Company). The series will be executive produced by Mike Werb and produced by Warner Horizon Television.

“These new series will offer our viewers a type of action-packed event entertainment not found anywhere else,” said Rob Sorcher, chief content officer of Cartoon Network. “We are looking forward to working with all of the great talent involved in these exciting new ventures, which we believe will be a powerful complement to our diverse and expanding array of original programming.”

Warner Horizon Television (WHTV) is one of the entertainment industry’s fastest-growing television companies, specializing in the creation of scripted series for the cable marketplace, and primetime reality series for both network and cable. Founded in 2006, this second production entity allows the Warner Bros. Television Group to expand its programming offerings and explore creative options made possible under a new business model. WHTV is producing more than a dozen series for broadcast and cable networks in 2009–2010.

Cartoon Network (CartoonNetwork.com), currently seen in more than 97 million U.S. homes and 166 countries around the world, is Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.’s ad-supported cable service now available in HD offering the best in original, acquired and classic entertainment for youth and families. Nightly from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. (ET, PT), Cartoon Network shares its channel space with Adult Swim, a late-night destination showcasing original and acquired animation for young adults 18-34.

Droid is no iPhone ... but why does it need to be?

Occasionally I put on my tech hat, usually when my personal technology is at stake. Today I reviewed the Verizon Wireless Droid, which was released this morning at stores. Here's my review and below, a video I put together after a demonstration at the State Line VZW store in Kansas City. Thanks to Natalie Bowman for doing such a great job with my Flip!

Are just TV heartthrobs like Willie Aames bad with money?

Not surprisingly, the comments section to my story on former "Eight Is Enough" actor Willie Aames' money troubles is filling up with notes of compassion and support:

"How do you start over from scratch? Being famous probably helps quite a bit. It gets you the attention of people who can help you. Since that's not really an option for the rest of us, I fail to see how Willie's financial advice is going to be much use to us. If he knew anything about finance, he wouldn't have been in such a mess in the first place."

"Hiring Willie Ames to be my financial planner would be neck-and-neck with having sex in Haiti without a condom in the Bad Idea Race."

"I suppose if I got a 25,000 check I could afford 760 bucks a month rent."

About that first comment. It is true that Willie Aames is getting help he probably would not have otherwise gotten thanks to his onetime fameball status. However, the commenter's logic then goes off the rails. "If he knew anything about finance, he wouldn't have been in such a mess in the first place."

Leaving aside the fact that, hello, he now does know something about finance, many, many people in our society appear not to know "anything about finance," and are likely not to seek help unless they encouraged ... say, by reading a story about a famous person who was in their spot once.

Sarano Kelley, Aames's financial coach, told me, "There is such a taboo around money. Our parents never told us what they earned. We didn't take classes in schools about doing our taxes. So much of one's financial literacy is just a matter of absolute luck. It's not related to a person's level of income or socioeconomic standing."

Kelley added that "Willie's going beyond survival mode, not just to create a sense of safety or esteem — he is literally emerging as a personal spokesman for financial literacy. That kind of human capacity is really what has made the greatest leaders we've had great, whether it was Abraham Lincoln or any number of fallible leaders who used their shortcomings to really be profound blessing to many. I expect really big things out of Willie."

Who is John Christopher Turner?

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John Christopher Turner found himself in the news yesterday. The Star did some reporting on his family, still living here in the area, and his apparent role in saving lives during yesterday's brazen attack on a hotel compound where UN workers were staying.

I spoke with Chris Turner six years ago, when he was promoting a special airing on the Discovery Times Channel called "Al Qaeda 2.0." The special was based on the book of the same name by journalist Peter Bergen. Somewhere in his travels in, Bergen had stumbled upon Turner, who told me he had been visiting the Pashtun region between Pakistan and Afghanistan (also known as "Hashistan," for obvious reasons) since 1967.

Here's the part that made the TV show:

BERGEN (narr.) In Washington we met with Chris Turner, an American photographer who has been visiting the tribes along the Afghan-Pakistan border for the past two decades. Turner used his tribal connections to visit the region twice since the 9/11 attacks. He claims that he met with al Qaeda members hiding in the region. He even took pictures of them.

BERGEN: (looking at picture) So, who is this guy?

TURNER: So, he is an al Qaeda operative who was quick to tell me that this is what he was.

BERGEN: How did it come up?

TURNER: As soon as I sat down he pointed an AK 47 on me and he said you have to leave now.

BERGEN (narr.) Here is Chris Turner wearing the turban and long beard, typical of the tribal areas, accompanied by the man who identified himself as a member of Al Qaeda, even more surprising -- running a drug operation.

(Well, not so surprising now, but this was 2003.)

TURNER: He was there to supervise and organize the heroin trade, which has become a major line of revenue for these people.

BERGEN: And you are convinced he was Al Qaeda?

TURNER: He said he was he made it very plain ... and I never forget the word ... he pointed the finger and said al Qaeda #1 al Qaeda #1. ... Al Qaeda, unlike the image we have of them here they are highly thought of in this tribal territory. Bin Laden was Robin Hood. He stood up against the mighty American machine and brought it to its knees. And for these people he is a hero.

Now Turner is in the news for allegedly having fended off gunmen with an AK-47 while holed up with hotel guests that the insurgents were trying to kill.

According to my story, which appeared March 25, 2003, "Al Qaeda 2.0" was the first program to launch the new Discovery Times Channel, a venture between Discovery and the New York Times that, alas, did not survive. It's now been rebranded Investigation Discovery.

Fox 4 to go all-HD soon ... HD news comes later

Dan Merker, who incidentally has a brilliant solution to the gridlock between exponents and opponents of a college football playoff, was appalled to see his high-definition picture of the World Series Game 1 squeezed to standard-def when an Amber Alert went out for 16-year-old Makenzie Green of Grain Valley.

"Really?" Dan writes. "Channel 4 STILL can't overlay a crawl over HD? It's almost 2010..." Yes, says Fox 4's news director Bryan McGruder, and when 2010 comes, the station will be able to overlay a crawl over HD.

"We just upgraded the switcher this week so that it will accept a piece of equipment we'll install in the coming weeks that will allow us to overlay on top of the HD programming while maintaining HD integrity," according to McGruder.

That means Fox 4 news will air in HD as well? UPDATE: Not so fast. After this post originally appeared, McGruder wrote back: "Our news will continue to air in SD, even after the switcher upgrade. The switcher to which I'm referring is the on-air switcher(master control). We use another switcher to produce the newscasts(production control) and it remains SD as will our newscasts."

Personally, I don't mind having the picture revert to SD during emergencies. It gets your attention.

KMOS-TV honored for community impact

Warrensburg's public TV station may not make much of a ripple in Kansas City, but it sure does in Warrensburg. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting honored KMOS, located at the University of Central Missouri, last night with a Community Impact Award at a ceremony in Warrensburg. CPB created the My Source Community Impact Awards "to recognize and showcase examples of local public broadcasting’s connection to community."

This stems from an ongoing initiative KMOS started in 2003 called "Happy Healthy Missouri Kids." With its community partners, KMOS developed and conducted workshops to educate parents about promoting healthier lifestyles with their kids. Since the launch of this project, community partners have conducted over 200 workshops reaching over 9,000 families.

Earlier this year Smoky Hills Public TV in western Kansas was also honored with a My Source Community Impact Award.

Kansas City to hold national free health clinic for the uninsured Dec. 9-10 ... the biggest one yet ... why KC was chosen

We have breaking news, if by "breaking news" we mean stuff that happened while I was out last week ...

As you may know, a series of mass free health clinics are being held across the country to call attention to the number of uninsured Americans and the strain that their untreated illnesses put on the nation's health care system. The timing of these clinics is obvious - free clinics are part of our health care system and they believe passionately that everyone deserves good medical care - an objective that dovetails with the current drive in Washington for universal health care.

This is perilous territory for physicians to tread. Taking a stand on such an incendiary political issue is not for the weak of stomach. But then, most doctors and nurses have tummies of steel. Besides, even the most feckless politician would agree that providing quality health care for all at the lowest possible cost is a worthy cause -- and it doesn't get much lower-cost than free.

It all started when celebrity physician Mehmet Oz, who has a new syndicated TV show, led a widely publicized free health clinic in Houston last month, at which nearly 1,800 patients were seen in one day. Many had symptoms that should've been taken care of long ago. One of the most extreme cases was Steven Cantrell, a working man with a blister on his lower lip that developed into a huge, ugly, life-threatening lesion. (Click here if you have a strong stomach.)

A producer on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," Rich Stockwell, suggested to his boss that he use his pulpit to raise money for more such clinics ... and to hold them in key states where Democratic senators were wavering on a public option in the upcoming legislation on health care reform. Just like that, $1.2 million was raised and a clinic was announced in the home state of Arkansas senator Blanche Lincoln. Then a second, in the state represented by Sen. Mary Landrieux.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Well, on Wednesday's "Countdown" last week, the National Association of Free Clinics announced a third mass clinic for the uninsured, right here in Kansas City. It will be the first 2-day-long clinic (Dec. 9-10) and according to Nicole Lamoureux, executive director of the association, it is designed as "a national version" of the Houston and Little Rock clinics. So it's not aimed at Sen. Claire McCaskill per se, but rather to make "a huge statement" about the crisis of Americans postponing vital, relatively low-cost medical care because they don't have insurance.

Kansas City was chosen, Lamoureaux told Keith Olbermann, because it has a "robust" free health clinic network, unlike other parts of the country; and, of course, it helps that we are in the middle of the country. Volunteers are always needed for free health clinics coming up, but in particular the big one coming up in Kansas City, so check out the freeclinics.us web site for more info.

For a related story on Dr. Oz, I spoke recently to Sheri Wood, who heads the Kansas City Free Clinic and is the president of the national association that Lamoureux serves. That story is appearing tomorrow in the Kansas City Star. Here's a quote from it. I asked Wood if holding these big free clinics at this time wasn't politically provocative:

“We are trying to stay out of the politics,” says Wood. “There are already clinics in those states. You can turn anything political that you want to. We’re not pushing the public option. The free health clinic movement believes that health care is truly a right, not a privilege, and the more people are insured, the less it will cost the system, because caring for the uninsured is expensive.”

About that tweet! The final chapter

Have you ever lost your wallet and started looking in the last pair of pants you had on, then searched the floor near your pants, then your jacket, your coat, the place where you leave your keys, your car ... and you can't find the wallet anywhere? And then when you get up the next morning, you remember you went to the store after you got home from work ... and put on some different pants?

That's kinda what just happened to me. It all started after Keith Olbermann was kind enough to retweet me on his "Countdown" show last week. Fox News got on my case to produce the email that was the basis of my tweet. Unfortunately, I'd deleted my source. I knew I'd seen what I'd seen, and that my 113-character joke tweet was accurate. (I love writing that phrase: 113-character joke tweet.)

So I began a three-day search for the deleted email, working with the IT department ... and meanwhile, Fox News contacted Danny Shea at the Huffington Post. Shea didn't even contact me for background. He just ran with it, and even asserted in his headline (reproduced above) that Fox News was right and I was wrong.

I stood my ground, the bloggers took it from there, and voila! -- instant, needless controversy.

By Wednesday, it started to look like we weren't going to find that email, which I had read at work on my kcstar.com account. And with people starting to call into the Star, I decided to tell my readers what had happened.

Then this morning, it suddenly occurred to me: What if Fox News sent the same email to my tvbarn address? And there it was, buried in my daily mountain of 200 news alerts and PR. Gmail puts them in a separate folder that I'd never thought to check.

So, to review, here is the little tweet that started the big kerfuffle:

Fox News PR just emailed to let me know Glenn Beck will be raising fears tonight on his TV show. No poop, Poirot.

And here is the source text, page one:

To be fair and balanced, Fox News told us late on Friday that the above email didn't come from PR but from another department in Fox. Also, I didn’t quite recall the subject line from memory when the email was still missing, but now that it’s found, there’s no disputing that the tweet was a spot-on paraphrase.

P.S. If you're wondering whether Glenn really did kick it up a notch for his very special H1N1 vaccine show, enjoy this clip from "The Daily Show":

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Doubt Break '09
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

"Greensburg" returns for season three

Hey, great news — the Planet Green channel will produce a third season of its docuseries "Greensburg," to begin airing in May 2010, which will be the third anniversary of the powerful EF-5 tornado that destroyed nearly every building in the Kansas town of 1,300.

I've been following the progress in Greensburg for some time now. Here are the stories I've written and above, some of the pictures taken by myself and Star photographers. The economy has slowed things down a bit out in western Kansas, but you wouldn't know it from looking at Main Street in Greensburg. The historic Robinett building is almost ready for Gary and Erica Goldman to move into — they'll live on the top level and operate their antiques store on the bottom — next door is the Kiowa United building, with nine storefront spaces, a project entirely funded by local citizens. Look around and you'll see City Hall going up, the newly restored historic Courthouse, the bank — all built or rebuilt to the highest sustainability standards.

At the county's lone stoplight sits the business incubator, the LEED Platinum gem paid for in part by Sun Chips and Leo DiCaprio, the grand opening of which you saw in the second season of "Greensburg" (along with a two-second cameo of yours truly). Down Highway 54 the new hospital is going up, John Deere is going strong (and LEED Platinum certified as well) ... and of course, there are hundreds of new homes utilizing insulated concrete, geothermal, even solar and wind, everywhere you go in town.

"Greensburg's" producer in the field, Johnny Gould, told the Kiowa County Signal on Thursday that filming will start next week, and he strongly hinted that this season will in fact be the last. "Season three will be aimed at tying up some of the loose ends of the story lines we’ve followed the first two seasons and showing that here's a town that's actually going to make it," Gould said.

The "King Corn" boys are back!

I'm a big fan of "King Corn," a film about the proliferation of corn products into our diets (and waistlines). Now, the same two guys who went off to Iowa and bought an acre of corn, plus director Aaron Wolf, are reuniting for a 30-minute film, "Big River," that traces where all the chemicals that were used on their acre of corn wound up -- in the Mississippi River, of course. Check it out.

Previously on TV Barn, I named "King Corn" to my Best of 2008 TV List.

Imus ratings have nowhere to go but up

Given what I've just been through with the Fox News publicity department, you would think I would find something else to write about. But I can't help it: David Hinckley left the most important detail out of his story yesterday on the first-week ratings for "Imus in the Morning" on Fox Business.

Yes, the I-man beat CNBC's morning program with his (admittedly modest) five-day average audience of 148,000 for the simulcast of his WABC radio show on FBN. And yes, that is (as Hinckley notes) "a little less than half the number he averaged when he was on MSNBC."

But the most important thing got left out — FBN is only in 55 million homes, and CNBC is in 100 million homes, according to Kagan research. So Imus is beating his competition on CNBC with one spindly, decrepit arm tied behind his back.

And that begs the question: Who's the real target here?

I still maintain, despite the denials of FBN GM Kevin Magee, that it's "Morning Joe" — the MSNBC show that succeeded "Imus in the Morning" and was incontestably influenced by it — that the new "Imus" show has its sights set on. Last week "Joe" averaged 358,000 homes, which means if FBN can scale up to the household level of MSNBC (96 million), it's game on.

This, by the way, was exactly the game we played a decade ago, as it became clear that Fox News Channel would overtake CNN in the ratings once it achieved universal carriage. And in light of the reports that Lou Dobbs is preparing to jump to Fox Biz, it does make you wonder if what we have here is the Fox News equivalent of ESPN2. (Hey, what's Suzy Kolber doing?) It makes you wonder how many of those channel spots currently reserved for the now-doomed Fox Reality Channel are going to flip to Biz. (UPDATE: The answer is none!) It makes you wonder what will happen to "Imus in the Morning's" numbers once the rest of the FBN schedule starts to get some numbers, any numbers.

I don't think the I-Man cares about beating Scarborough per se. The host of "Morning Joe" has given props to Imus in the past. This is about sticking it to MSNBC. And if we read between the lines of this morning's "Imus in the Morning" on FBN, it would appear the old coot agrees with me.

Don Imus: So I'm reading the paper this morning -- I'm wondering about our ratings at the Fox Business Network and how these other people feel. I would remind you that we've been on only seven or eight days. We are already kicking CNBC's ass. And I would also remind you we are not on Cablevision. When Cablevision puts us on --

Charles McCord: Forget about it.

I-Man: -- on Long Island and New Jersey and other places around the country, it's over!

Chuck: Open the floodgates.

I-Man: And here's why it's over. Because they're stupid. They are stupid, the people they have on are stupid, and people hate them. They've been winning by default. And why? Because I was over there on Hee Haw! (Everyone laughs.) Wasn't a thing I could do about it then.

He also mentioned "Morning Joe" by name -- not in a mean way but perhaps, unconsciously, to let us all know he was thinking of it.

Previously on TV Barn, I wrote Imus off way too soon. Which was dumb, because he's obviously one of my favorite people to write about.

About that tweet....

UPDATE: I FOUND THE EMAIL! Read the silly details here.

So here's the deal. Last Thursday, I was in the office at my PC when an email arrived at my kcstar.com account. It was from Fox News, and it said in the subject line: Glenn Beck raises fears. And I chuckled, because that's Glenn's schtick. Why would you promote that? Well, I double-clicked the message and read that Beck was planning a very special broadcast that night about the H1N1 vaccine. But it's the subject line I found unintentionally hilarious and worthy of a tweet.

Two minutes later, it was all over ... or so I thought. That night, "Countdown" mentioned my tweet. On Friday (after I'd left work), Fox demanded a source for it. On Monday (after I failed to reply), they went to Danny Shea with it. And we've been talking about it inside the Star ever since.

Apologies to my media friends who have inquired this week and gotten the brush-off from me, because what we were talking about was this inconvenient little truth: I deleted the email!

My in-house email at kcstar.com can't be auto-forwarded to my tvbarn account, which is on Gmail (and where almost all my mail since 2005 is stored), and my kcstar.com inbox fills up quickly, so long ago I asked publicists who were sending to kcstar to please change their address books to tvbarn. However, some PR still comes to the Star account, including from Fox News. (Oddly, I've noticed some Fox News mailings that arrived at kcstar.com didn't arrive at tvbarn, and vice versa.) Of course, I can hand-forward any email to my tvbarn account, but in this instance I didn't, and the email went away after I logged off.

Fox News denies sending any such message, so that leads to two questions that I will leave up to the reader to answer. One: Who would make something like that up -- a press release that does its job of promoting a special show? (In my visual memory, the email bears all the marks of Fox News PR, right down to the 18 point-ish Helvetica bold headline and breathless punctuation in the copy -- what William F. Buckley called "exclamationitis.")

And two: Why would I make that up? It's a pretty innocuous email and a pretty innocuous post, from someone who has written nice features over the years about Shep Smith, Alan Colmes, Chris Wallace, Tony Snow (God rest his soul) and, for that matter, the whole Fox News juggernaut. I have no reason to believe that Fox News is fibbing. Next time, though, you can be sure I'll have proof of what really happened.

Previously on TV Barn, I took the measure of Fox News on its 10th anniversary.

Kirk Black begins to build his Atlanta team ... with Kansas City talent

Kirk Black, the former GM of Meredith's KCTV-KSMO here, just hired his old sales manager to run advertising for his new station, WGCL in Atlanta. His promo guy from KCTV had preceded him by moving to WGCL a few months before he did.

PR follows ...

Summer radio ratings: KPRS wins the last book-only book

Hot 103 Jamz has won another summer radio ratings book. That's nothing new for Kansas City's locally-owned urban powerhouse. But as hundreds of area listeners walk around town with Arbitron's new Portable People Meters strapped to their persons, you have to wonder: Is it the last ratings period Carter Broadcasting will win for a while?

As radio insiders know, Arbitron has long weighted the ratings to make up for the low participation of minority listeners. The number of paper diaries returned to Arbitron, especially by African-Americans, is often disproportionately low compared to their actual percentage of the population. What happens then is one of the most contentious bits of number crunching outside mark-to-market: The minority ratings Arbitron does receive are then adjusted upward to make up for the shortage of filled-out diaries. In a recent survey, for instance, the percentage of black men aged 18-34 had to be adjusted by more than 50 percent.

That's all about to end with PPMs, which are being used around Kansas City as we speak. The next ratings period will feature diary numbers, but those will likely be overshadowed by the "pre-currency" numbers Arbitron releases from its PPM sample. (PPMs will be issued monthly instead of quarterly.) Assuming that the minority listeners who get these electronic devices don't lose them or forget to wear them disproportionate to any other group of listeners, Arbitron won't need to weight their ratings.

Already we've seen this have a devastating effect on stations aimed at Spanish and African-American listeners. Industry reps have howled, and Congress has taken the PPMs to task, so Arbitron may take corrective action yet. For now, though, the outlook would seem grim for urban broadcasters around the country -- including KPRS and Magic 107.3, which also had a great Summer book.

On the other hand, Chicago's urban stations didn't appear to suffer much from the PPM switch ... but ratings for Spanish stations in Chicago dipped. For that matter, that city's longtime morning man Steve Dahl (who's white) was yanked when his PPM numbers came in because station management decided hours of uninterrupted music would do just as well for less money.

But hey! Why all the gloom and doom? Carter's riding high after ekeing out a win over the Spring book winner, 98.9 The Rock. In demos, your winners were The Rock in 25-54 year olds and, by a mile, in 18-34 year olds; Magic 107.3 in 35-64 year olds; and Mix in the surprisingly important cougar demo of women 25-44. Here are your rankings for 6 a.m. to midnight, Monday through Sunday, for the Summer 2009 book ("t" means tie, "+" means gained 2 or more ranks from Spring Book, "_" means lost 2 or more ranks from Spring Book). The number in parentheses is how the station ranked overall in the 25-54 demo.

 1. Hot 103 Jamz - 6.1 (2)       _12t. KUDL - 3.2 (12)
 2. The Rock - 6.0 (1)           14. WHB - 2.9 (7) 
 +3. Magic 107.3 - 5.4 (4)       _15. Jack FM - 2.6 (10)
 4. KFKF - 5.3 (8)               16t. Buzz - 2.3 (15t)
 5. Mix 93.3 - 5.0 (5)           16t. Star 102 - 2.3 (14)
 _6. 980 KMBZ - 4.9 (13)         18. 610 Sports - 2.0 (18)
 7. 101 the Fox - 4.8 (3)        19. Kiss FM - 1.8 (15t)
 _8. 94.9 KCMO - 4.2 (9)         20. KCCV - 1.2 (21)
 +9. Q-104 - 3.9 (6)             21. La Gran D - 1.1 (20)
 +10. The Wolf - 3.8 (11)        22. Gospel 1590 - 1.0 (23)
 _11. KCMO-AM - 3.4 (17)         23. La Super X - 0.9 (22)
 12t. 95.7 The Vibe - 3.2 (19)   24. KXTR - 0.6 (-)

Fox News bites back at my tweet. (Yes, my tweet.) I tweet, they bite, you decide!

So last week I tweeted about an amusing Glenn Beck promotional email I'd gotten, and someone at "Countdown" saw it and passed it onto Keith Olbermann, who read it on the air. Well, Fox News didn't like that. A spokesman for the news channel then told The Huffington Post on Monday (10/12) that they didn't send that email.

The headline of the article reads "Fox News PR Never Sent Aaron Barnhart 'Glenn Beck Raising Fears' E-Mail That He Tweeted About." Not "Fox News PR Says..." but simply "Fox News PR Never Sent." This, I believe, is an historic occasion -- the first time Huffington Post has ever taken Fox News PR at their word.

What's more, Danny Shea at HuffPo didn't even ask me for my response. But I sent him one anyway on Tuesday:

Hi Danny. If a department inside Fox News is disclaiming an email saying that Glenn Beck would be raising fears about the H1N1 vaccine on Thursday's program, I can understand why, especially this week. All I can say is, I saw that email, and like so many things that make me laugh, I had to tweet it. Yes, Glenn Beck's going to raise fears tonight, and Jay Leno's going to tell a Jon and Kate joke, and the cheerleading coach on GLEE is going to break someone's balls. I like Fox News, but something about Keith Olbermann makes lasers shoot out of their eyes.

Moving on ....

AUDIO: Before this all blew up, on Monday morning I did my regular radio segment with San Diego morning man Chip Franklin on KOGO Radio. First we talked about the nutty David Letterman video I had just posted. Then we talked about the news that the White House was attacking Fox News. Regardless of my own drama with the news channel's PR department, I still think the White House is insane to go after Fox.

Also in our podcast, I gave Chip a brief history of cable television in America and told him which TV shows to see and skip this week.

(d/l)

Did Letterman warn Halderman the night before? Watch and decide

Reader Gary Clifford just posted this fascinating theory to the alt.fan.letterman group (yes, people are still on Usenet!). I reprint it here along with the corroborating evidence.

Gary points to a Geico commercial parody that aired on the "Late Show" on Sept. 30 — the night before Joe Halderman was arrested for his alleged extortion attempt against David Letterman. In the bit, Dave notices that the eyeballs on the wad of cash are watching him, and immediately grabs a book and crushes the eyes. (Cut to movie blood oozing hilariously out of the wad of cash.)

There's only one conclusion for Gary to draw from this sketch: "Looking back," he writes, "it looks like a clear message to the alleged extortionist."

I'm dubious. Nobody at Worldwide Pants had the slightest inkling what was about to happen the night before Halderman was arrested, and last I checked, Letterman didn't write the skits.

Still, it's a fascinating artifact to consider in light of everything, ain't it?

Thanks for the shout-out, Keith!

So today I got an email whose subject line I just found amusing: Glenn Beck raises fears! it said.

It was to promote his "special broadcast" tonight about the swine flu vaccine. Apparently he has some misgivings, which is fine I guess, except that had the timing been a little different there wouldn't be a swine flu vaccine, because it would just have been incorporated into the existing flu shot, though I suppose Glenn could then simply transfer his viewers' fears to general paranoia about vaccinations.

Anyway, I just thought it was funny that the notion of Glenn Beck "raising fears" was noteworthy or even vaguely promotable. It's like, what the hell else do you tune in to his show for? Besides video for your evening comedy show ...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Moment of Zen - Glenn Beck Cries
www.thedailyshow.com

I love Shep.

Anyway, I tweeted a smartass comment about the email I'd received and then went back to whatever I was doing. But someone handed it on to KO:

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By the way, did you know that according to my friends in research, 94 percent of Beck's audience is white, biggest percentage of any cable news show? Also, did you know a third of his viewers come from the South, also tops among any cable news show? They are twice as likely to be educated (37 percent have 4-year degrees) as HLN viewers (18 percent), though I'm not sure that's saying much.

The point is, it's an unusually white and Southern audience of average education, and if you recall "A Face in the Crowd," so was Lonesome Rhodes's audience, which makes KO's equation of Beck and Lonesome pretty sharp. That said, I detect a bit of Jack Paar in Glenn as well — he's well-read, he likes to tell funny stories on himself (when he's not weeping) and, as a critic once observed about Paar, "he might explode one day ... and you might see a nervous breakdown viewed from the comfort of your own bedroom."

If there's a special broadcast you should watch, it's Keith's Wednesday night hourlong "Special Comment" on health care reform. If you don't have a full hour, at least watch this segment:

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VIDEO: "Meet the Past" begins tonight as Harry gives Crosby hell

Here's a clip from tonight's "Meet the Past," Crosby Kemper's library chats with famous local figures played by our area's best historical performers. I wrote about the tapings earlier this year. Those have been expertly edited to half an hour and begin airing 8:30 Thursday nights starting tonight on KCPT.

In the clip, the man from Independence discusses the 1948 campaign for president and what he did on election night.

Letterman's Monday mea culpa was OK ... but did this really belong on the show? Also: What's this "former" assistant nonsense?

As this picture makes clear, the revelations of an extortion plot linked to David Letterman's tendencies to sleep with members of his staff have not exactly been bad for business. Ratings were up for last week's shows and Monday's numbers are expected to be through the roof when they are released later this morning.

Still, the goal at the "Late Show" is to get back to normalcy, although the new normal may possibly include fewer Mark Sanford and Bill Clinton jokes. And if that is all that Joe Halderman achieved through his alleged! blackmail attempt, gee, maybe it was worth it. Well, for me anyway...

"Chilly outside my house ... chilly inside my house ..." A pretty good line from David Letterman, as was that joke about the Appalachian Trail, but it wasn't the funniest moment of Monday's "Late Show" broadcast — I give that prize to Steve Martin's pyrotechnic banjo stunt, which was all the better because it was unexpected. (Unlike Dave addressing all this nonsense.)

I spoke with KNX Radio today about the message control of the Letterman camp and the fact that this whole controversy has been, in effect, the Jeremiah Wright of late night, knocking CBS off its message of Dave's ratings surge. Of course, his ratings have surged ever since the news of the extortion attempt broke ... but don't expect to see too many ratings releases about that.

By the way, did you notice — I'm talking to you, Daily News, LA Times, and Wikipedia! — that in the end credits that ran last night, Stephanie Birkitt is still listed as one of Mr. Letterman's assistants? Better update those web versions! Former lover, current assistant ...

Meanwhile, over on Facebook my friend Jeff Kisseloff, the Nation's archivist and author of a definitive oral history of television, noted:

"But what he didn't do was apologize for taking advantage of his staff members. And imagine what his wife must think about his making light of the situation. After thinking about this, it just seems to me that he didn't have to make this part of his routine at all. Why not call a press conference, make a statement, take questions and leave it at that. That way, he makes it clear that this isn't a joking matter. I know he likes to bring personal stuff into the show, but there's a line you can cross, and with this he crossed it, and he didn't have to.

"I tell you something else, the more he talks about what this guy did, the better case he builds for him that he can't get a fair trial. If I was Halderman's lawyer, I'd applaud every comment Letterman makes just for that reason. Shargel is a pretty smart guy, so I’m sure he's taking good notes."

While the show was still airing on Monday, I spoke with WTOP Radio for my insty-reaction. I said I thought the show did OK as damage control but given how few particulars we know — and how unseemly the whole business with Stephanie now seems, in hindsight — this story has not played itself out by a long shot, and we'll just have to see how Dave handles it.

And here's our pal Marisa Guthrie, talking to Keith Olbermann last night. It was a really informative interview, especially KO's revelations about the year he worked with the accused in 1981. Guess what percentage of Dave's audience is made up of women. Take a guess, and then click to hear Marisa give the answer. Even I was astounded ...

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d/l1d/l2

WDAF-TV to reunite its dream team for 60th anniversary

Wow, has it been 10 years since I marked WDAF-TV's half century of service? It has.

As we approach the 60th anniversary of the night that the Kansas City Star switched on the area's first — and for nearly four years its only — television station, management there has plans to reunite its most memorable anchor team. Take it away, multiple Emmy winner Damon Bryant:

First, on Thursday, October 15 at 9:30PM we are planning to run a 30-minute special, “60 Years of News.” This will be the fourth in a series of half-hour specials that have run over the past year. This special will include the biggest news stories from the past 60 years, with interviews and reflections from WDAF-TV alumni.

On Friday, October 16, our morning show will kick off the day with a special anniversary edition that will feature highlights and clips from the past, remembrances and a few special treats and other viewer giveaways. That evening at 6pm and possibly at 10pm, we are reuniting the dream team of Cynthia Smith and Phil Witt (click the videos). Cynthia will co-anchor both shows and help provide a special look back to our NBC glory days.

We are also producing a limited edition DVD that will include the four 60-year specials, plus our 50th and 20th anniversary specials. Also included will be rare still photographs from the decades and bonus interview material from WDAF alumni that has not been seen or previously aired. This DVD will be available for purchase after Thanksgiving at any area Rod’s Hallmark Gold Crown store.

(Make sure you check out WDAF's 60th anniversary website, loaded with archival photos and video like the ones featuring Phil and Cynthia below. Also, there's details about the time capsule burial happening on the 16th; kids are invited to submit entries.--AB)