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The Black and Brown List
“With a flurry of new network series set to debut between this week and continuing well into next year, prime-time TV, that mirror on both the national imagination and the national self-image, is about to reflect more of America than usual.”
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'Mad Men': End of a love affair?
“It’s possible that by snubbing ‘Mad Men’ for a Golden Globe, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association may have thought a recent AMC decision tried the patience once too often, and that — consistent with the feelings of many viewers — it was time to say out loud what people have thought in private: ‘Mad Men,’ we’re just not that into you anymore.”
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“This change could be the start of something big for ‘SNL,’ an opportunity to take point on the hot-button issues of our time, to do again what the show used to do routinely: Be anything but routine.”
‘Up Late’: A new Friday night light
“Baldwin, interviewing some of his favorite people on a set designed to look like a booth at a homey waterfront diner, displays a range of both passions and interests that’s thoroughly reflected in a thoughtful choice of guests, and an equally thoughtful line of inquiry. This may be Alec Baldwin on his really best behavior, brandishing a restless intellect and a fearless interview style. Two shows in and it’s already clear that he’s good at this. Sometimes, very good.”
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“Alec Baldwin loses a powerful platform for expanding his voice and his brand beyond impromptu fisticuffs and Capital One ads. MSNBC loses its bid for fresh Friday-night programming. And the viewing public is denied its welcome parole from one night of MSNBC’s ‘Lockup’ prison-doc series.”
MSNBC morphs again (CNN not so much)
“More than just about anything else in recent years, it’s been the network’s weekend morph into the Incarceration & Forensics Channel that compromised its ability to truly become the full-service news machine that the ubiquity of cable has entitled viewers to expect. With the full-on assault on weekend dayparts, MSNBC stands poised to really go head to head with its counterparts in the space.”
Rerouting the Current: Al Jazeera makes an acquisition
“What’s still to be seen, once it’s all up and running, is whether a foreign-born network with a toehold in the American market can do better at building an audience than the home-grown product it replaces.”
“Something about the CNN style, the delivery, the look-and-feel of the programming feels off, a step or three behind its competitors. Admittedly, there’s no statistical metric for je ne sais quoi, but the ineffable something CNN doesn’t have is effable enough to call Jeff Zucker in to find it.”
Fox News raises Cain
“This may be the latest in Fox News’ bid to steal a march on the freewheeling program-hosting style of MSNBC — to, in effect, be the MSNBC for conservatives.”
The rise and rise of Rev. Al Sharpton
“With a forthright style cultivated in the pulpit and on the street, Sharpton has done one of the main things that modern television demands: carved out a telegenic personality, establishing a singular identity not to be confused with anyone else. … Much to their dismay, old-guard mainstream journalists face a paradigm shift of which Sharpton's rise is but a leading indicator: the fact that minority voices are finally starting to achieve critical mass in the American commentariat.”
Tearing down the walls at CBS Evening News
“There’s been no breakthrough in changing the habits and tastes of network news viewers — a fact that’s kept the “CBS Evening News” in the vexing position of being locked in third place, according to the ratings, despite the rise of one of the best investigative reporters on broadcast TV.”
