Television Industry

The U.S. government will offer households as much as $80 each to convert televisions to receive digital broadcasts under a $1.5-billion program. Households with one or more TV sets can ask for as many as two $40 coupons as long as the first $990 million lasts, the Commerce Department said Monday. An additional $510 million in coupons may be offered if the initial amount is insufficient. The subsidies are designed to help consumers prepare for the end of analog TV broadcasts in February 2009.

Ready, contestants? Here's your bonus question: Have TV quiz-show questions become dumber, and have the shows' rules grown wimpier, as producers pander to ever-lower audience expectations and the viewing public's general intellectual flabbiness? Good luck, panel! (Sound of time-filling musical interlude.) OK, time's up. For those of you playing along at home, the correct answer is ... Boy, have they. Consider the premiere episode of the new Fox hit, "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

For millions of Americans, the digital revolution might not be televised. One in 5 U.S. households -- more than a million in the Los Angeles area -- depends on rabbit ears or a rooftop antenna to watch TV. Without converter boxes, most of their sets will go blank the day in 2009 that federal law requires broadcast stations to turn off analog signals and transmit only in digital.

The switch to digital television from analog should not be delayed because it is crucial that emergency services have access to freed-up airwaves to communicate, U.S. lawmakers said Wednesday. U.S. television stations are required to switch to airing only digital broadcasts by Feb. 17, 2009. That will free up analog airwaves, some of which will be set aside for public safety so emergency workers can better communicate with one another -- a significant problem during the Sept.

Children are being fed a steady diet of junk-food ads by the TV channels they watch, according to a new study. Youngsters 2 to 7 years old see a dozen food ads a day, researchers said Wednesday, and nearly half of the commercials aimed at children 17 and younger are selling candy, snacks, soda or fast food. The review of more than 8,800 ads by Indiana University and the Kaiser Family Foundation couldn't find a single commercial for fresh fruit or vegetables.

Los Angeles billionaire A. Jerrold Perenchio on Thursday waved adios to the business he has spent nearly 15 years building into the nation's foremost Spanish-language media company, Univision Communications Inc. As expected, the sale of the Century City-based company for $12.3 billion closed Thursday, two days after winning the blessing of the Federal Communications Commission. The new owners, a consortium of investors including another Los Angeles billionaire, Haim Saban, paid $36.

If "Wall Street" were made today, Gordon Gekko might be a television executive who would shrewdly say: "Green is good." Green is now officially big business in Hollywood. Beginning in the fall, programs on the youth-oriented CW network will include story lines that promote environmental themes. Some of the CW's hottest stars will tout energy-saving tips in public service announcements. And, the network recently decided, all the paper it uses will be recycled and printed on both sides.

Four years ago, Tyler Perry pitched an idea for a sitcom about a firefighter with two kids who moves in with his parents after his crack-addicted wife burns their house down. The network executives loved it. Except they didn't want the hero to be a firefighter. And they didn't want veteran stage actors Cassi Davis and Lavan Davis to play the leads. And they didn't want the matriarch to make so many references to Jesus and the Bible.

Gary Scott Thompson, writer and executive producer of the NBC show "Las Vegas," won't be taking a summer hiatus. Instead of enjoying his usual three months off, he and his colleagues have been asked to write scripts and shoot most of next season's episodes, presumably as a hedge against a potential Hollywood writers' strike late this year. Starting Monday, new production for "Las Vegas" starts -- three months earlier than usual -- with the goal of shooting 18 or 22 episodes by fall.

After a nearly three-month trial and a bizarre week capped by the disqualification of the jury foreman, NBC Universal on Friday settled a lawsuit with the creators of NBC's former hit sitcom "Will & Grace." Strangely, the settlement came \o7after\f7 the Los Angeles jury had reached a $49-million verdict against NBC, which is owned by General Electric Co.