Television Programming

The fight for young male television viewers just got bloodier. CBS, which once filled the airwaves on Saturday nights with "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "The Carol Burnett Show," said Thursday it has signed a deal to broadcast mixed-martial arts bouts on TV's slowest night, marking the biggest showcase yet for the newly popular combat sport.

Seen one network, seen 'em all? A big problem is brewing for TV programmers, especially on cable: Too many of them are running shows that resemble the same stuff everyone else is doing. You may say, "Yes, and next you'll break the story of the invention of the cathode-ray tube." Isn't chasing somebody else's hits just the normal behavioral pattern of television executives? Maybe, but look at Sunday nights this spring. E!

FOR A moment or two, I thought we had lost the summer and would have to spend the pre-Emmy months in wistful nostagia and reruns. Undone by the writers strike, Emmy hopefuls like HBO's "Big Love" and FX's "Damages," which made last year one of the best TV summers ever, won't be back for many months. This season was so weird and truncated, reruns weren't appealing and no one seemed to be launching summer shows. Would my son and his gaming friends gain control of the flat-screen? No!

This should be a new dawn for "Nightline." Instead, it could be good night. After years of lagging behind dueling late-night talk shows, the ABC news program is winning attention with a series of high-profile scoops and closing the viewer gap against "Late Show With David Letterman." But instead of celebrating, "Nightline" staffers are anxious. Six years ago, Walt Disney Co. tried to lure Letterman to its ABC network, a move that backfired and frayed relations with the news division.

TV EXECUTIVES like to say that you can't judge anything by a couple of weeks' worth of ratings. Or at least that's what they like to say when those ratings don't look so hot. But we're going to throw such caution to the wind here. Based on the first wave of ratings -- and mind you, we're barely two weeks into the regular season, with the financial meltdown and a heated presidential campaign causing viewing disruptions right and left, so to speak -- three networks have a clear advantage.

When Alan Taylor is directing your HBO television pilot, it's usually a sign the program is a lock to get on the air. The Emmy-award winning director has put his imprint on nearly every one of the network's major series, including "The Sopranos," "Sex and the City," "Six Feet Under," "Big Love" and "Deadwood." But Taylor's latest HBO project, "Bored to Death," is up against stiffer competition than usual.

The CW network said Thursday that it was dumping its flailing Sunday night lineup -- outsourced this year to independent studio Media Rights Capital in a gambit to boost the struggling network's ratings -- and that it would reassert control over the night's programming. Starting Nov. 30, CW will give the night over to theatrical movies, plus repeats of CBS' apocalyptic drama "Jericho" and the sitcom "The Drew Carey Show."

Games in the 76 Classic college basketball tournament will be played in front of thousands of empty seats at the Anaheim Convention Center today through Sunday, and the event organizers couldn't care less. They didn't mind last week, either, when only a few thousand spectators dotted a 19,000-seat arena in Puerto Rico for another of their tournaments.

A drug dealer, a serial killer, a sex addict and a king with a penchant for beheading his comely wives -- bad sorts are doing a lot of good for Showtime. It's quite a turnaround from five years ago, when the channel was best known for the gay drama "Queer as Folk." Showtime seemed destined to stay hidden in the shadow of HBO, which has long dominated the pay-TV landscape.

As Hollywood braces for what could be its second labor walkout in a year, the fundamental contract issue dividing the Screen Actors Guild and the major studios is what the future holds for online entertainment. But it's what's happening now with online entertainment that could shape the outcome. Companies that make shows to be watched online are scaling back and laying off employees, making it more difficult for actors to make the case that the Internet is Hollywood's new frontier.