Ananas

Chuck did a 2.5 rating in the demos with 6.66 million viewers. Nice to see it held pretty well in the demos even against the 24 premiere. Heroes on the other hand only managed to hold 59% of its lead in, posting a 1.7 in the demos and 3.97 million viewers. NBC has to see the writing on the wall here. One show is doing excellent year to year retention, the other is eroding faster than the chances of the Tonight Show being watchable in a month.

Link Not Dollhouse related, but I didn't think it really warranted a whole topic yet. Nonetheless, that's awesome.

But I think you're assuming that it's only fair to paint Leno as the bad guy if he orchestrated this clusterfuck, which isn't true. There are some far reaching conspiracy theories (Howard Stern was talking about one the other day) that Leno took the 10pm show full well knowing that his ratings would in a roundabout way destroy Conan's audience and that he'd get his show back. I have no reason to believe that's the case beyond circumstantial evidence so I don't hold it against Leno. What I do hold against him is the overall arrogance and selfishness he's displayed over the past close to 3 years since the 2007 upfronts when he began to act the victim and imply he might jump to a competitor. I really wish that he realised the sun didn't shine out his ass and that, in fact, he's been incredibly lucky in his career so far and that after 17 seasons NBC was more than justified in looking to lock up its natural heir to the Tonight Show throne before he jumped to CBS and became the natural heir to the Late Show throne. He talked a good game about wanting to pass the torch to Conan and pretended he wished him well, but then why did he paint himself in the media as the victim being pushed to the side, making an enemy out of Conan in the eyes of the Tonight Show's aging viewership? Why did he take the primetime slot, ensuring that his fans need not even bother giving Conan a chance because the Tonight Show host they'd become accustomed to all these years wasn't actually gone? Why, when his own ratings proved so disastrous that he was canceled, did he demand a return to his old time slot, hereby bumping the heir who he'd just 7 months ago "passed the torch" to from the anchor slot in late night? If he didn't realise all of these things would hurt Conan, then he's just an idiot and is to be seen as little more than a lucky buffoon. If he did, then he is the bad guy because he said he'd do one thing then did the other. No matter how much Jay is riffing on "getting canceled", he's getting a promotion, and getting back the time slot he never wanted to vacate. If he had a little more humility and didn't try to pretend otherwise, people might not be so angry at him right now.

Officially, nobody's commenting on Ebersol's blunt comments to the New York Times. But one person deep inside Team Coco responded with a mix of bemusement and sarcasm to Ebersol's tantrum, in which he basically says that O'Brien's ratings are down because he didn't bland down his act enough. "This is the essence of NBC's problems," the Conan insider told TV MoJoe. "Conan O'Brien is losing his job because he didn't take the comedy notes of a 62-year-old sports producer."

You shouldn't forget 2 things 6. Dick Ebersol is a blatant Jeff Zucker sycophant and has been for almost a decade now. 7. Dick Ebersol is just about to oversee the NBC Olympic coverage, which the network is expecting will lose them a huge sum of money. He's one to talk about failures.

Sounds like Leno might make their mind up for them. Pop Eater is reporting that Leno is seriously considering leaving NBC. If that were to happen I think you have your solution; leave Conan in the Tonight Show (since he wouldn't have grounds to quit) and let time be the best medicine. Leno has clear grounds to walk (assuming he had a time slot guarantee in his contract, which he probably did) so it might be more expensive to convince him to stay. My opinion: cut the chin fat and take your ratings lumps in the interim. There has to be a time where NBC says enough of this pandering bullshit; it's time to start building for the future. The whole deal is epidemic of the way Jeff Zucker has dithered this network to the point of oblivion. He kept Friends around for an eternity without finding a natural heir. He let Frasier and ER waste away to the point where their finales were meaningless. His answer to declining ratings was to replace high ceiling but more expensive scripted content with irrelevant but cheap reality TV. When the other networks realised that didn't work and kept reality TV to a minimum, he went even CHEAPER and handed 5 hours of prime time to a fucking variety show. At some point Zucker has to realise: when ratings eventually get so low that even reality TV is too expensive, what then? PBS style telathons with old movies in between? Wall to Wall Today Show? Jeff Zucker and Jay Leno sitting around comparing neck fat 24 hours a day? Do away with Leno, do away with Conan, whatever. Just DO SOMETHING. While Zucker and Co. stand idly by, two of America's two greatest media institutions (NBC and the Tonight Show) are wasting away.

It's not. And if it was, they'd have a affiliate mutiny on their hands. There were affiliates they had to strongarm into airing the Leno Show in the first place. Once they saw what a white flag at 10pm was doing to their news shows (the bread and butter of affiliate revenue), they put the screws to Zucker. They need to keep the affiliates happy (and more specifically quiet) in order to get the Comcast takeover done. There was no saving the Leno Show at 10pm. And if this IS a big ratings conspiracy, they're fucked for a myriad of reasons.

Conan has thrown down the gauntlet, says he won't do the Tonight Show at 12:05:

If the numbers can stay above last season's average tonight, they're in great shape. Everything at NBC is down this year, pathetically so. With those lowered standards, coupled with the fact that the 10pm hour is going to be back in play starting in March, opens a great window of opportunity that many Chuck fans who are ratings realists didn't foresee when it was renewed last May. Well, I guess we saw the ratings struggles continuing because, let's be honest, it's still NBC. But hey, NBC promotions did a great job getting the word out, and hopefully enough of those new viewers stick around to give the show a strong enough base to not only get renewed, but to position itself as a tentpole show on a rebuilding NBC.

Chapman to the Reds. 5 years, 30 million dollars. Jays were in with a 23 million dollar offer on Friday, but obviously the Reds think more of this kid. He's raw, but you can't teach velocity. 30 million is a lot for a kid who has 1 plus pitch right now. Twice what Stephen Strasburg got from the Nat's, although that he was to get more than Strasburg was a guarantee since he was on the open market. Time will tell on this one but I have to think that for the Jays, with Drabek, Morrow, Stewart, Cecil, Romero, Marcum, Rzepczynski and Alvarez in the system, sometimes your best moves are the ones you don't make.

Far be it from me to whore a Jays blog to talk about the Alomar snub (and the BBWAA's backwardness), but Drunk Jays Fans nails it on this particular occasion. Which, if you are a Jays fan, it warrants pointing out that it does quite frequently.

There are some people who are trying to say this is a VERY player friendly contract (7 years with vesting option for an 8th, full no trade clause), but I'm actually going to say this is about market value. You're locking up a guy for a long time and it's a gamble as to the extent to which he starts to decline, but this is a guy who hasn't put up anything remotely close to league average numbers since his rookie campaign. And even if he does end up overvalued at the end, who cares? You're looking to win now, and with the 1-2 offensive punch of Holliday-Pujols and the 1-2 pitching combo of Carpenter-Wainright, you have a chance to do just that. Just hopefully this time Matt knows to disregard swirling towels when the entire playoffs are on the line.

It looked for a second in November like Phil Hendry might be stupid enough to trade for Vernon Wells. If he isn't, nobody is.

If Omar really wants to go into the history books, I've got a Vernon Wells I'd like to sell him.

So Jason Bay was officially unveiled as a Met today on a contract worth about $16.5 million a season for 4 years with a vesting option for a 5th. Thoughts? It's kind baffling to me that Minaya is spending this kind of money on a low-range 31 year old outfielder considering the absolute incompetence of his starting rotation (outside of Santana obviously) and the lack of production he got out of his infield in 09. Kelvim Escobar is a smart risk, but shoulder issues have limited him to 1 start in the past two years so you can't expect too much. They're already at around 110 million without the expected arbitration raises to Maine, Cora and Feliciano.

1. Scrubs 2. The Newsroom 3. Lost 4. Twin Peaks 5. Angel 6. Life on Mars 7. The Norm Show 8. Buffy the Vampire Slayer 9. 24 10. Coupling I doubt it requires pointing out, but Coupling and Life on Mars are the UK originals.

I have Undergrads on DVD. I don't know if it was just region 1, but it was released. Two Guys A Girl and a Pizza Place and The Norm Show never got DVD releases. I get why, but it still sucks. I'd love to have DVD's of Ken Finkelman's non-Newsroom series, but they also never got released.

Yeah they definitely didn't get fleeced. They basically acquired 3 prospects that, depending on how you feel about D'Arnaud, become 1-2-3 on the Jays top prospects ranking (ahead of prospects like JP Arencibia, Zach Stewart, Henderson Alvarez and Chad Jenkins). And instead of holding on to him and taking risks on 2 compensatory draft picks of guys who have never stepped into a professional game, they got three guys, all of whom have had professional success and all of whom were the top prospects in their organizations at their respective positions. Forget about the 6 million; all it means is that instead of getting 15 million dollars in 2010 salary relief they got 9. And if I had to choose between eating some of Doc's 2010 salary for a premium package or getting the Yanks to take Doc's entire salary, extending him to keep him in the division and saddling us with Jesus Montero and some shitbag like Andrew Brackman, I'd have done what AA did in a second.

SI reporting a three team deal. Roy Halladay to the Phils, Cliff Lee to the Mariners and a not yet disclosed prospect package to the Jays. Thanks Doc, you've been amazing.

Well they had to find someone for Tito to beat.

Bill Burr on the Yankees win (NSFW):

That's assuming that 2008 was just an off-season and not the natural decline of a 35 year old outfielder. His 2009 numbers were just a hair above league average as his slugging percentage and batting average dropped to 6 year lows. He's also a righty and wouldn't benefit from the short porch like Matsui does. The Yanks will have Xavier Nady back next year, so you could argue that they might be more aggressive looking for a big swinging DH than a guy to flash the glove and potentially replace Damon. You know, a kind of guy whose father was also a big swinging DH type. You know, a guy who has one more year left on his contract and whose team is unlikely to be able to afford to resign him. You know, a fat vegetarian who won the home run derby this year. Does anyone know somebody like that?

What Biggzy is saying is totally right. It's fine to disagree with the judges. I'm not sure I agree with them either (I'm not sure who I think won round 1 anymore, but the more I think of it the more I think it was Machida's). But the truth of the matter is that the last three rounds were pretty easy to call (3 for Lyoto, 4 and 5 for Shogun), but the first two were very close. It's not about cumulative effort; the first two rounds were close enough that it's really a judgment call (with valid arguments on either side) as to who won them. The judges just happened to have given both of the nail-biters to Machida. You can disagree with them, but to call the results bullshit would be to overstate the difference between the two fighters in the early rounds, of which there was very little.

Not quite. There are a couple things draining on that. For one, the studio doesn't take 100% of the receipts for a screening. Deals tend to vary by film, but rarely does a film net the studio more than 80% of receipts opening weekend. There are also overhead costs like print costs and promotions. They may not be during prime time (at least I didn't see any during prime time) but they have been running TV spots for the last week. I'd personally be surprised if the promotional costs weren't in the millions. And then of course you have the actual cost to DreamWorks of buying this independent film. Don't get me wrong, it wouldn't shock me if it is already profitable (and it most certainly will end up profitable); it's just that the profit margin at this point is likely negligible. And to that end, courtesy of Nikki Finke: Where it goes from here now is entirely dependent on how good the flick itself is. If the word-of-mouth spreads, it could easily be a Saw-like breakout hit.

I think the reason he wasn't was that they were waiting for a new President to come in and conduct the search for a GM himself. They don't have that President yet, but with the Cito mutiny it seems like they moved it up either to cover Cito's ass and deflect attention or because there is suspicion that Ricciardi leaked the story to Ken Rosenthal. As for the new GM, Alex Anthopoulos is an in-house guy from Montreal who started in public relations with the Expos when he was just 23, went through Scout School and was hired as a Jays scout in 2003. He's been an assistant to Ricciardi since 2006. It's been said that he's well thought of among big league scouts and agents, and he fits the homegrown billing Beeston's been looking to expand on in the front office. Whether he is more than just a caretaker will depend on the new President. God, this team is such a gigantic clusterfuck.