–“DESPERATE TIMES FOR TV NETWORKS”–

Jace Lacob has an excellent article at the Daily Beast about the demise of scripted television, especially the serialized drama. Most telling is when he reminds us that up to 30 million people once watched “E.R.” Today’s biggest hit is “NCIS,” which reaches about 19 million viewers, whereas “House” and “Desperate Housewives” can’t reach ten million and “Mad Men” barely cracks 2 million.

The blame goes to where it always goes. Event reality shows like “American Idol,” Netflix, the Internet, the DVR… You also have cable networks eating into the broadcast network’s decades-long exclusive hold on audiences. MTV’s “Jersey Shore” recently pulled in nearly 9 million viewers and so did TNT’s “Rizzoli and Isles.” All of these reasons make sense, but you also have to look at the cultural aspects.

Now that people have almost unlimited choices at the click of a remote, they are turning towards programming, like “NCIS,” that’s more in line with their values. “American Idol” appeals to the conservative heartland for all kinds of reasons and (as I’ve mentioned before) networks like Discovery, The Learning Channel and History offer reality programming that stars masculine men, entrepreneurs, small business owners, and a host of people more like us — as opposed to toned Manhattan/Los Angeles-types on narcissistic quests to find themselves and loveless sex.

Furthermore, thanks to streaming, you no longer need to sit through “what’s on.” You no longer need to face a barrage of politically correct sex jokes on “Must-see TV!” You can program an evening with Dick Van Dyke, Andy Griffith, and “Mission: Impossible.”

An amazing technological transformation is happening to the entertainment business today, and it’s mostly a good thing. And this cultural reality created as a result is something the Left just doesn’t want to consider as they analyze these numbers.

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Our buddy Kyle Smith points out that the Daily Beast has made a laughably pathetic attempt to gin up some controversy over a line from the movie “Horrible Bosses,” which is in theaters today.  From NewsBeast’s Ramin Setoodeh:

In the new comedy Horrible Bosses, Jennifer Aniston plays an overbearing dentist named Julia who tortures her assistant Dale (Charlie Day) by sexually harassing him. She’s one of three managers (along with Colin Farrell and Kevin Spacey) meant to be so detestable that their underlings plot to murder them. She constantly corners Dale, asking him to perform lewd sexual acts. In one scene, Aniston’s character calls him into her office, wearing nothing but a white lab coat. When he expresses discomfort, she taunts him like a high-school bully. “You’re starting to sound like a little faggot there, Dale,” she says.

[...]

…And congratulations to me, for I have won the BIG office pool.

Here at the BIGS, we all picked squares to back up our prediction of who would be the first member of the MSM to compare the upcoming Sarah Palin documentary”The Undefeated” to Leni Riefenstahl’s infamous pro-Nazi propaganda film. “Triumph of the Will.”

Looking oh-so sincere and innocent in black and white…

Personally, my gut told me this person would have to be uncommonly angry and cruel; someone willing to stoop to a level of partisan inhumanity where few fear to tread, someone so despicably desperate to destroy another they would use a political figure’s own children as weapons of attack.

Well, according to my Google Alert… Ladies and gents, Mr. Andrew Sullivan:

“If someone gives it a chance and watches it, watches the film, I think they will be surprised at the caricature that’s been drawn and the contrast to reality. I just think every aspect of it is so powerful, you cannot walk away from this film looking at Sarah Palin the same way. You just can’t,” – Meg Stapleton, on the upcoming propaganda movie, “Triumph Of The Will” “The Undefeated.”

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The public relations hit Hollywood took during their tone-deaf Rally ‘Round The Child Rapist Movement last September was pretty devastating for the entertainment industry as a whole. It was also probably the first time The Beautiful People had to confront the reality that their propaganda wing known as the entertainment media could no longer control the image of their narrative. Blogs, talk radio, Fox News and other truth tellers gave the child-rapist apologists a serious taste of accountability, and it stung.

In order to recover, the film industry can only play the revisionist game and try to rewrite their sordid Polanski support in the hopes that those of us who don’t think directing “Chinatown” earns you a free pass to anally rape a child will somehow forget. So, a little too late, along comes the Daily Beast’s Kim Masters who gives it the old college try with an article arguing that Polanski doesn’t really have as much Hollywood support as some of us might think.

After portraying himself as a victim in his public letter earlier this month, the fugitive director has lost support in the movie industry that once defended him.

Roman Polanski had better hope his recent statement—breaking his silence on his arrest last September and asking “to be treated fairly like anyone else”—falls on more sympathetic ears in Switzerland than in much of Hollywood. Because if industry power players were judging whether to extradite the 76-year-old director, chances are he would be on the next flight to Los Angeles.

Well that sure sounds a like a too-late moral awakening, but an awakening nonetheless. A quick perusal between the lines, however, tells the real story. (more…)

To which I respond to my unofficial biographer Conor Friedersdorf’s Daily Beast criticism of your’s truly and bigger fish Andrew Sullivan’s two-thumbs-up to it:                             

Andrew Sullivan (left) and Conor Friedersdorf

In the piece you link to and affirm in the Daily Beast, “The Right’s Lesser Press,” Conor Friedersdorf refuses to interview me as he continues to be my unofficial biographer. (I’m VERY reachable, Conor.) He writes opinion pieces on me purporting to be journalism. He doesn’t quote or cite me, he simply assumes and pushes the point of view he thinks I have and makes an argument based on these alleged positions. It’s sloppy and you, of all people, should know better.

Breitbart.com is MOSTLY a news aggregator. It carries the Associated Press, Reuters, even, Agence France Presse, from those dreaded croissant eaters!!!

It even carries the New York Times on its front page — a benefit that even Big Government and Big Hollywood don’t receive.

Big Hollywood is what it is: a counter-voice to the virtually monolithic Hollywood left. How dare I grant a platform, and a means for the defense of those in Hollywood who would dare go against the strident and intolerant Hollywood left.

Big Government, too, is providing an outlet for voices and ideas that are not proportionally represented in the traditional and mostly biased mainstream media.

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Part pit bull, part Columbo whacked out on a pot of espresso, they don’t make investigative journalists like Mark Ebner anymore. And that’s good news if you’re a dirt bag, scum bag, douche bag or any sort of Hollywood low-level, window peeping, carpet crawling, masturbation celebrity want-to-be.

Mr. Ebner is one of the few writers left today willing to get down in the gutter with his subjects just to hear their truth. In his new book Six Degrees of Paris Hilton, Mr. Ebner takes you to the places they never show you on “Access Hollywood,” because if the general public could access the side of Hollywood Mr. Ebner uncovers, that tub of popcorn in your lap at the multiplex would serve only one purpose, that of a barf bucket.

I recently had the chance to ask Mr. Ebner about his new book and what his thoughts on the state of Hollywood are today. (more…)