Monday, October 30, 2006

"Studio 60" About To Be Cancelled?

That's what the usually dependable Roger Friedman of FoxNews says. However, he doesn't quote any reliable sources or offer up any evidence other than the obvious: the ratings are poor (which we all knew). The one new piece of evidence he digs up is that stars on the show are tellking friends they know the end is near. Well, so do we. On the negative side, Friedman gets his facts wrong by saying NBC ordered three more episodes. They didn't; what they ordered were three more SCRIPTS, which is far less of a financial risk and far more telling actually. If a network isn't willing to order up a full season of episodes, a show is in trouble. So Friedman misconstrued a signal of NBC's lack of faith as being something positive (which an order of more episodes would in fact be). He also described "Heroes" as a "cult" hit. Yes, it's a comic book superhero sort of show, but it's still not a cult hit -- it's ranked in the Top 30 every week. Finally, he failed to mention the most telling fact of all: NBC is kicking "Studio 60" out of its plum timeslot and trying out "Friday Night Lights" instead. If "Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip" were doing well, NBC would never mess with it like this. So Friedman is right; "Studio 60" will be cancelled. But he doesn't back up that obvious claim with any new info and he gets his facts wrong. A rare chance to say gotcha about Friedman.

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