Television Networks

Kevin Weiberg's hiring as chief operating officer and deputy commissioner of the Pacific 10 Conference was a strategic move toward the goal of launching a television sports network, Commissioner Larry Scott said Tuesday. "A Pac-10 network was something that we were going to seriously explore," Scott said in a conference call with reporters. "The timing is such that now we're less than a year away from our negotiating period, our analysis and evaluation has to get more serious and more rigorous.

What's so funny about the TV networks' new fall schedules? Everything - or at least that's the hope of programmers who unveiled their new lineups to advertisers this week in New York and have gone cuckoo for comedy in a way not seen in at least 15 years. Reversing their lament from a few seasons ago that sitcoms were suffering from a creative and ratings drought, the networks are now whipping up a cloudburst of hoped-for laughs that will rain across flat screens, laptops and tablets come September.

Comcast Corp. has added prime-time television series from Fox and ABC to its video-on-demand service, becoming the first pay-television provider to offer episodes of current programs from all four major TV networks: ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. The move recognizes that consumers no longer are adhering to the old-school prime-time TV schedules that have long dictated how millions of TV viewers spend their evenings. Consumers instead have embraced digital video recorders and services like Hulu, Netflix and Apple Inc.'s iTunes so they can watch TV programs on their own timetable.

Earlier this week, long-languishing NBC ordered a fall sitcom with an apt title: "Save Me. " As they get ready to roll out their fall lineups next week in New York, rival networks know the feeling. TV executives are scrambling to counter steep drop-offs among young-adult viewers and some record-low series ratings this spring. Fox's once-dominant singing show"American Idol" has seen ratings tumble by nearly 30% to its lowest totals since summer 2002, according to Nielsen. Of the Top 10 programs this season among total viewers, not a single freshman series makes the cut. And for viewers ages 18 to 49 - the category most advertisers care about - the only first-season shows to attain genuine hit status areCBS' raunchy sitcom"2 Broke Girls" and Fox's over-the-top singing contest"The X Factor" - both barely scraping under the wire at Nos. 9 and 10 respectively.

In some parts of the country, home prices are back near 2001 levels, and now so is the volume of advertising the TV networks have sold. Buckling under the pressure of a weak advertising market, the broadcast networks have cut prices for commercial time, a rare setback for companies used to commanding ever-higher prices.

Time Warner Inc. said Wednesday it will shut down the interactive television network that it introduced with great fanfare more than two years ago. The company originally planned to use the two-way television network as the center of a nationwide shopping and entertainment service, but has instead moved toward a less-costly system that offers videos on demand. The Full Service Network provides movies-on-demand, home shopping, video games and other services in 4,000 homes in two Florida counties.

ABC and CBS on Thursday selected different standards for digital television, indicating that broadcasters likely won't reach a consensus on how they'll use the new technology that promises sharper pictures and better sound. CBS said it will begin airing five hours of prime-time shows later this year with the method that allows the highest picture quality. ABC, meantime, plans to broadcast lower-resolution images, which may allow it to squeeze another channel onto the air.

The ABC, NBC and CBS television networks said Thursday they will air live coverage today of the 7 a.m. PDT start of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas. CNN, PBS and C-SPAN earlier said they would provide gavel-to-gavel coverage of the hearings, as did cable's new Court TV network, which serves 5 million homes. ABC said it had not decided how long it will continue its live coverage.

American television networks were forced to make delicate decisions about the use of video footage of Middle East violence Thursday. CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel repeatedly aired footage of a Palestinian mob that attacked and killed three Israeli soldiers. While the scenes depicted a violent attack, what they were attacking was never made clear.

The three major television networks, which staged a walkout during contract talks in February, have reached agreement on a new three-year contract with the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

NEW YORK - Yahoo Inc.staged its glitzy presentation for advertisers in a theater near Central Park, with appearances by Katie Couric, "CSI" creator Anthony E. Zuiker and, via video, Tom Hanks. AOL Inc.rented out a three-story production studio in the gentrified Meatpacking District, which it filled with pounding dance tracks as gym-sculpted servers carried trays of beverages and snacks. A series of celebrity-studded presentations concluded with 1970s TV star Marlo Thomas taking the stage as AOL awarded prizes, including a new Ford Mustang convertible.

More than 20 years after he last played pro basketball, former Lakers star Magic Johnson is ready for a whole new game: running his own TV network. The Hall of Famer, who has become a successful business mogul, is preparing to launch Aspire, a 24-hour channel with a focus on what Johnson called positive, uplifting images of African Americans. The basic cable outlet will join other channels targeting black viewers, such as BET and TV One, and will offer opportunities for blacks who have struggled to find work in mainstream Hollywood.

Pac-12 Conference Commissioner Larry Scott's big year begins Monday as he watches two of his teams, Oregon and Stanford, perform in lucrative Bowl Championship Series games at Pasadena and Glendale, Ariz. In the fall, the conference's marquee program, USC, emerges from its two-year NCAA bowl ban with a Heisman Trophy candidate quarterback in Matt Barkley and national-title aspirations certain to draw crowds and boost television ratings for the new Pac-12 network. New coaches at UCLA, Arizona and Washington State enhance the depth.

They say Tim Tebow can't pass. They say he over-relies on the run, and prays too much on the field. They say he'll never last in the National Football League. But one thing the critics can't say about the strangely polarizing Denver Broncos quarterback is that he isn't good for television. In addition to being 6-1 since being named the team's starter, Tebow's winning ways have boosted ratings for the networks that are scrambling, and sometimes piling on and over each other, to broadcast the Broncos and its star quarterback.

Call it a cable squeeze play. Cable television networks may be the most lucrative divisions of many large media companies, but the networks are beginning to feel the pinch of dramatically higher programming costs. In 2006, TV sports giant ESPN spent $3.5 billion on programming for its flagship channel. This year, the channel's content costs have mushroomed to $5.2 billion — a nearly 50% jump from five years ago, according to consulting firm SNL Kagan. Programming expenses for Time Warner Inc.'s TNT channel have soared 55% since 2006 to $1.1 billion this year, propelled by sports rights fees for NBA and NCAA basketball as well as a lineup of original dramas including "The Closer" and "Falling Skies.

Reporting from Wilmington, Del — The main event in the Dodgers' bankruptcy case was supposed to be McCourt versus Selig. Little did we suspect that, five weeks after Dodgers owner Frank McCourt agreed to sell the team, the legal fireworks really would get underway. In a two-day hearing set to start Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, McCourt's antagonist is Fox Sports, not the commissioner of baseball. Before the Dodgers filed for bankruptcy, Fox stood with McCourt in an effort to secure the Dodgers' long-term television rights by throwing McCourt the financial lifeline of a new broadcast contract.

At Manhattan's famed Radio City Music Hall, home of the high-stepping Rockettes, NBC Entertainment President Jeffrey Zucker took a hard kick at his ratings rivals. "We're No. 1 in the morning, No. 1 in daytime, No. 1 in late night and No. 1 in prime time 47 of the last 56 weeks," he boasted to a packed house of advertisers, agents and studio executives this week. "The momentum is all with us."

Contending that television news coverage of state government is "embarrassingly" inadequate, an independent organization called California Channel on Monday proposed a new government-affairs TV network, focusing chiefly on the Legislature. Suggesting a system similar to the C-SPAN television coverage of Congress, the group called for installing cameras in the chambers and hearing rooms of the Assembly and Senate and broadcasting sessions live and by unedited tape to cable TV stations statewide.

Walt Disney Co. says it plans to launch a broadcast version of Disney Channel in Russia next year, enabling the entertainment giant to deliver its family programming to about 40 million households in the increasingly important market. Disney will acquire a 49% stake in Seven TV network, a national TV network in Russia, enabling it to air Disney Channel programming on broadcast stations in 54 urban markets, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as in rural areas. The company did not disclose financial terms.

Daniel Burke, considered one of the architects of the modern television industry and a former president and chief executive of Capital Cities/ABC, died Wednesday. He was 82. He died at his home in Rye, N.Y., of complications from type 1 diabetes, according to his family. Burke spent more than 30 years at CapCities, rising from manager of its television station in Albany, N.Y., to chief executive. Working closely with Tom Murphy, the chairman of CapCities, the duo transformed the company from a handful of TV stations into a broadcasting and publishing giant.