Television News

"Living Single," left, is the new favorite show of black TV viewers, followed by "Martin" and former champ "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." "The Report on Black Television Viewing" finds the top 10 shows of African American audiences to be completely distinct from the top 10 of all TV viewers.

Strong performances from the film studio and cable television business helped propel a 65% jump in News Corp.'s net income for its second quarter. The media conglomerate on Wednesday reported revenue of $8.98 billion for the quarter that ended Dec. 31, up 2% from the same time a year earlier. Net income rose to $1.06 billion, compared with $642 million a year earlier. Earnings per share rose to 42 cents. "We believe the explosion of consumer demand for digital content, driven by the upsurge in emerging platforms and international opportunities, makes this a great time to be a content leader," President and Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey told investors.

It was a voice of anguish that pierced a nation. Israeli TV broadcast a father's heartbreak Friday night when a Palestinian doctor living in Gaza made a frantic phone call to a newscaster saying an Israeli tank had shelled his home, killing three of his daughters and injuring other family members. Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish, who speaks Hebrew, worked as a gynecologist in an Israeli hospital.

After 35 years in television news, Warren Olney walked away from a lucrative reporting job at the end of 1991, frustrated that the medium had become too superficial. When public radio station KCRW-FM (89.9) invited him to host a one-time show, a call-in program in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, he didn't realize he was about to start another career. Now, two decades later, he's preparing to celebrate the 20th anniversary of "Which Way, L.A.?" and on Saturday night will receive a lifetime achievement award from the Radio & Television News Assn.

An intriguing e-mail arrived in response to my recent column about Av Westin's new handbook setting down "best practices" for TV journalists and issuing a status report on the newscast business in 2000. His thumbs are down. Westin, a former top ABC News executive, had said that while researching his handbook he was shocked to learn from news reporters, producers and managers of their workplace experiences that involved racism and news caving in to commercial pressures.

Jeff Greenfield changed employers, not skins when leaving ABC News a year ago to become senior analyst at CNN. The New York-based Greenfield remains one of TV journalism's true Renaissance men, writing and thinking as well as he speaks, and equally smart about media and politics. No wonder, for media and politics have regularly intersected his career as they did the nation in 1998 when CNN made him a key cog in its coverage of the scandal threatening to topple President Clinton.

A letter came in recently from a frustrated viewer who is typical of Americans who haven't made the effort to learn the exciting new idiom of television news. "I am numb with the spate of 'Breaking News' reports we television viewers are bombarded with almost daily," he wrote, angrily.

The salesmen are winning, the result being that many viewers select a local newscast to watch for the wrong reasons. Affirmation came in the ratings sweeps for November. That was the month that KABC-TV Channel 7 retook the ratings lead from once-dominant KNBC Channel 4 at 4 p.m. in estimates by the A. C. Nielsen Co., adding a whopping 90,000 households to its news audience for that hour over what it had had in November, 1989.

France's government gave the green light Wednesday for an international TV news channel to start broadcasting in French by the end of next year, with the aim of spreading the country's vision to the world. The brainchild of President Jacques Chirac, the 24-hour news channel is expected to beam into homes, hotels and newsrooms in much the same way as U.S.-based CNN, Britain's BBC World and Qatar's Arabic-language al-Jazeera. "France must ...

Michael Gartner vividly recalls when, in 1989, as president of NBC News, he sat down for a meeting with Alfred Geller, the agent renegotiating Connie Chung's contract. "Geller plopped down and put his feet on the table," Gartner says. "He had a few buttons of his shirt open with his rather large stomach sticking out. He proceeded to tell me he wanted $3 million a year for Connie, her own prime-time show, she got to pick the producer and . . . he wanted a quick answer.

News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey hinted that the programming giant would oppose any push from pay-television providers to put sports channels on a specialty tier. The topic of moving big sports channels such as ESPN and regional sports networks - of which News Corp.'s Fox owns 19 - has heated up in recent weeks. With sports rights costs rising, cable and satellite operators are fearing a backlash from consumers - particularly non-sports fans - when bills go up. However, programmers are against specialty tiers devoted to sports channels because it would mean reaching fewer potential viewers and hurt advertising.

Herman Cain, whose status as a GOP presidential front-runner had already been rocked by allegations of sexual harassment, denied Monday that he'd had a 13-year, consensual affair with an Atlanta businesswoman. Ginger White told Atlanta local news station WAGA-TV that she had a sexual relationship with Cain that began in the late 1990s when he was president of the National Restaurant Assn. The affair ended shortly before he jumped into the presidential race this year, she said, but their friendship had continued.

With three days to go before their current agreement expires, DirecTV and News Corp. are still far apart on a deal to keep more than 25 networks on the satellite broadcaster's programming service. Among the News Corp.-owned channels DirecTV is prepared to drop Tuesday are the popular FX network and 19 regional sports channels, including Prime Ticket and Fox Sports West in Los Angeles. Not part of the dispute are Fox's broadcast television stations and Fox News. DirecTV said News Corp.'s Fox Cable unit was demanding a 40% fee increase to keep carrying the channels.

Row 44 Inc., an in-flight broadband Internet provider based in Westlake Village, said it signed a deal with an array of television news stations to deliver live streaming video to onboard passengers. Under the deal, passengers will be able to watch Fox News, MSNBC and BBC World News; live business news from CNBC, Fox Business Network and Bloomberg Television; and sports on NBC Sports Network. It is the second major announcement for the firm in two weeks. Last week, Row 44 inked a deal with Major League Baseball to stream live games to passengers' smartphones, laptops, tablets and other Wi-Fi enabled devices.

Back in the early 1990s, when I crammed into The Times' tiny City Hall bureau each day, John Schwada sat a desk away. My colleague had a well-deserved reputation for delivering ribald one-liners, quoting Shakespeare, dressing with a panache above his ink-mottled station and, especially, for busting the chops of politicians who busted the rules. Schwada reveled in the journalist's dual identity. His long tenure made him a virtual insider, but he had no hesitation to nail real insiders who went astray.

Reporting from Tempe, Ariz. ? Hisanori Takahashi says he is experiencing a severe case of survivor's guilt. While his countrymen in Japan are reeling from the effects of the devastating earthquake and tsunami, which killed thousands, wiped out towns and has thrown the nation into a nuclear crisis, the veteran left-hander is in camp with the Angels, enjoying the relative tranquility of Arizona. "That's what I'm feeling right now," Takahashi said through a translator. "Fortunately, I am a survivor, but it hurts, of course.

Television news reporter Adrienne Alpert, who suffered life-threatening burns in a May 22 accident, was listed in good condition Tuesday following what doctors said could be her final surgery. During the 90-minute procedure, four surgeons at the Grossman Burn Center removed unhealthy tissue and grafted skin onto injured areas on her arms and legs, said Larry Weinberg, a spokesman for Sherman Oaks Hospital & Medical Center.

As the anchor of one television news program here wraps up her daily broadcast, her sister is ready to face the cameras on a competing station. Lili Bliss, who anchors the noon news on KCTV, said she doesn't consider her sister a rival--even though Katherine Bliss is anchor for the 11:30 a.m. news on WDAF. "We want us both to be rated No. 1," she said. The Blisses are believed to be the only sisters in the media who come so close to being head-to-head rivals on network affiliates.

With summer ending, local television news stations recently rolled out their back-to-school features. In 10 big cities, that meant an appearance by a young mother and "toy expert" named Elizabeth Werner. Werner whipped through pitches for seven toys in just a few minutes. Perky and positive-plus, Werner seemed to wow morning news people in towns like Detroit, Atlanta and Phoenix. They oohed and aahed as they smelled Play-Doh, poked at mechanical bugs and strummed an electronic guitar she brought to the studio.

The crowded market for English-language foreign news is making room for a surprising new player: CNC World, a 24-hour television news channel launched by the New China News Agency, or Xinhua, China's main news service. In launching a "new source of information for global audiences," CNC apparently wants to be an English-language alternative to the dominant narratives of Western media, such as the BBC, CNN and certainly Fox. CNC will be broadcast in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, North America and Africa.