Cable beat the seven broadcast networks in February sweeps for the first time ever, notching a 49.4 household share in prime time compared with broadcast’s 48.6. Cable is set to win its second straight broadcast season with a 51.8 share this season to date, compared with broadcast’s 45.7, according to Turner Research analysis of Nielsen numbers.  ...

If you find yourself getting most of your news from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and feel guilty about not living up to your civic duty of being an informed citizen, I highly recommend watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. I've been a fan of Olbermann's ever since The Big Show on MSNBC, and if you ever watched Sports Night, you saw a close analog to Olbermann's time hosting ESPN's ...

 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment came out with starter sets for Buffy The Vampire Slayer, 24, The Pretender, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show yesterday-- 2 to 4 hour collections of episodes from the first season, priced to move at $9.99.Fox has been incredibly aggressive in adopting the DVD model as a revenue source, and it's been hugely popular and profitable (according to Adams Media ...

Seth MacFarlane is producing a theatrical stage production of Family Guy titled, originally enough, Family Guy Live! The "two-hour, multimedia extravaganza" will feature MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, Seth Green, Mila Kunis, and Mike Henry. The actors will read from a classic episode, take part in a Q&A and preview the first new Family Guy episode in three years. Family Guy Live! is ...

If you ever wondered what presidential pollsters do in the off years, wonder no more. Zogby has run a poll of 5,505 West Wing nuts (demographically weighted) and Santos is in the early lead. The poll also found 19% still undecided on the race, while 9% are not willing to support either candidate. According to pollster John Zogby: "While the American people don’t go to the polls to ...

New commercial for Vegas: a woman is introducing herself to various men at various locations in the city as (in order) Cindy, Jan, Marcia, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, Samantha, Xena (?!?), Lucy (with her friend Ethel), Louise (call her Weezy), and Ginger.Ginger, of course, meets Cliff and his buddy Norm.Coming soon: the inevitable meeting of Gil, Catherine, and Nickie-poo. ...

Let the viewer beware: President Bush said today that his administration's practice of sending packaged news stories to local television stations was legal and he had no plans to stop doing it. The Government Accountability Office, an arm of Congress, has deemed the packages a form of covert propaganda, and said this ran counter to appropriation laws and was a misuse of federal funds.Bush ...

Reuters reports that President Bush has picked Kevin Martin to head the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, replacing Michael Powell. Martin, 38, became a Republican FCC commissioner in 2001 and clashed with Powell over deregulating local telephone network sharing rules and relaxing media ownership limits. Martin's elevation does not require Senate confirmation. And like so many folks in ...

The New York Times has an article on the problems facing the writers of Lost, The O.C., Desperate Housewives, and 24 as they get down to the end of the season. It seems most of them are actually unwritten and unshot. "The monster of production is at your back; you're writing closer and closer to deadline," said one "Lost" writer. They should look at the bright side-- they ...