June 02, 2005 |
RATINGS SHMATINGS
American Idol-fueled Fox won the final week of the May sweep among adults 18-49 and total viewers. Last Wednesday's Idol finale was the week's most-watched show with 30.2 million viewers — that's up 5 percent over 2004's climax. Tuesday's performance edition ranked No. 2 with 28.1 million pairs of eyeballs, followed by the season finales of CSI: Miami (No. 3 with 20.7 million), Lost (No. 4 with 20.7 million) and House (No. 5 with 19.5 million). And if you look further down the list... keep going.... you're almost there... just a few more spots... you'll find Britney & Kevin: Chaotic, which plummeted to No. 77 with a series-low 3 million viewers. That noise you hear is UPN execs going, "Oops." |
IN OTHER RATINGS NEWS...
For the week of May 16-22, The Oprah Winfrey Show accomplished something it hadn't in 13 years: It overtook Wheel of Fortune to finish No. 1 among all syndicated programs. The feat is even more impressive when you consider that Tom Cruise's highly-rated breakdown did not contribute to the win; that little freak show aired on May 23. |
ARE YOU READY TO RAMBO?
'Cause Sylvester Stallone sure is. The aging actor hero is set to reprise his role as the headband-wearing Vietnam vet in Rambo IV, which begins production in January '06 — six months before Stallone's 60th birthday. Details on the plot are being kept hush-hush, but several unreliable sources far removed from the production laughed when I told them about this. |
HUGE DEBUT
Chappelle's Show: Season 2 Uncensored sold nearly 500,000 copies in its first day of release, setting a new TV-DVD record. Not to put any more pressure on Dave, but, wow — that's a lot to live up to. |
GET OUT!
CBS has ordered 12 episodes of Old Christine, a comedy starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a single mom juggling work, family and her ex-hubby's new girlfriend. The show is slated to debut at midseason. |
DEAD MAN ACTING
Woody Allen has finally discovered the genius that is Ian McShane. The auteur has tapped the [bleepin'] brilliant Deadwood thesp to star in his latest as-yet untitled pic, to be shot in England during McShane's hiatus. |
NOW WHAT DID HE DO
An arrest warrant was issued for Bobby Brown Wednesday after Whit's troubled hubby failed to appear for a child support hearing. The hasbeen's attorney told the judge his client became ill and was taken to an Atlanta-area hospital, but he was unable to provide any proof. With all due respect, we're talking about Bobby Brown. The dude's not well. |
SPEAKING OUT
In honor of CNN's 25th anniversary, founder Ted Turner gave a speech to staffers Wednesday and urged them to cover international news and the environment and not, um, perverts. "You know, we have a lot of perverts on today, and I know that, but is that really news?" he groaned. "I mean, come on. I guess you've got to cover Michael Jackson, but not three stories about perversion that we do every day as well." And I thought silver was the traditional 25th anniversary gift. |
|
|
|
