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Ah, project Wildfire.

Or is this more of a Threshold situation.

Unless this is more like War of the Worlds.

Maybe I just watch too much Sci-Fi.

I thought Fox, ABC, CBS, and NBC were the (mostly) White Family Channels.

The Black Family Channel just happens to reveal their target demographic in their name.

After you watch a couple of episodes, join us and see what you can do to save the show!

If you decide that you still don't like the show, that is fine! Just realize what we are really fighting for here:

If you have ever had a show cancelled without warning--this is your fight!

If you are tired of Network TV deciding what is entertaining--this is your fight!

If you want to force TV giants to consider its Internet audiences as an important demographic--this is your fight!

Join us! http://www.jericholives.com/

In 1983, the series Cagney & Lacey was canceled by CBS and was subsequently brought back to the prime time schedule after fans of the show staged a major letter-writing campaign. That show went on to earn 36 Emmy nominations and 14 wins during its run. But I am not rooting for the recall of Jericho because I think it will win an Emmy or Spawn as many Spinoffs as Star Trek, I am rooting because I want the networks to realize and acknowledge that the way they count viewers is flawed. I watched Jericho on the web on CBS' website (innertube) which they conveniently forgot to count into their ratings (as well as Tivo & DVR and iTunes)You see I am not my grandmother, the Nielson box (which recorded 9 million viewers at it's ebb and 12 at it's peak for this series) doesn't apply. And I sure as hell don't think they canceled due to ratings alone, I think it was bagged in favor of a "CHEAP ALTERNATIVE" The reality show costs little money compared to a serial drama, and also seems to hold it's own today (but really Kid Nation ?? 18 to 49 yr olds are gonna love THAT!)

In 1983, the series Cagney & Lacey was canceled by CBS and was subsequently brought back to the prime time schedule after fans of the show staged a major letter-writing campaign. That show went on to earn 36 Emmy nominations and 14 wins during its run. But I am not rooting for the recall of Jericho because I think it will win an Emmy or Spawn as many Spinoffs as Star Trek, I am rooting because I want the networks to realize and acknowledge that the way they count viewers is flawed. I watched Jericho on the web on CBS' website (innertube) which they conveniently forgot to count into their ratings (as well as Tivo & DVR and iTunes)You see I am not my grandmother, the Nielson box (which recorded 9 million viewers at it's ebb and 12 at it's peak for this series) doesn't apply. And I sure as hell don't think they canceled due to ratings alone, I think it was bagged in favor of a "CHEAP ALTERNATIVE" The reality show costs little money compared to a serial drama, and also seems to hold it's own today (but really Kid Nation ?? 18 to 49 yr olds are gonna love THAT!)

...isn't that CBS cancelled the show, but that it's being axed to make room for New Insipid Reality Show #462 and "Ooh! Pirates!"

The "Tiffany Network," eh?

So, why not make the pilot or the first episode of the season free to hook people on shows.

Why stop there? Why not provide the latest episode online for free in case you missed it or prioritized something else (or two something elses if you have a dual-tuner PVR, or three something elses if you recorded two shows and watched a third already-recorded show)? That's what NBC does with Heroes. But why not go even further? NBC provides all episodes of the current season of Friday Night Lights online for free. CBS has done the same thing with Jericho. There are probably other such shows out there provided online for free by the parent company that I just haven't stumbled across (I watch and enjoy Heroes and Jericho, and though I haven't watched it yet I ran across Friday Night Lights by accident).

Yes, these videos are streaming-online-only. Yes, it sucks to have to watch them in a browser rather than on your big screen TV. However this does bring up an interesting question -- if time-shifting is legal, as the courts have held up, and if time-shifting could imply a necessary format-shifting (from broadcast format to tape or disk, for example), might not this new behavior by CBS and NBC actually allow you to time-shift and format-shift not by watching the videos online but by downloading them in a more big screen-friendly format (say, DivX, playable on any HTPC) from a bittorrent tracker somewhere? Seems like a gray area to me. Obviously it would only apply to shows where the full episodes are available for free from the parent company, so shows like Battlestar Galactica or 24 are out. But for the shows I mentioned and others like them, it's definitely an interesting question, unfortunately probably only answerable by a court somewhere.

It does make you wonder how CBS can justify selling Jericho on Xbox Live Video Marketplace for $2/episode when they provide the exact same content online free of charge. Just food for thought ...

People already ~are~ threatening to use them.

Various terrorists, including Bin Laden, have threatened to kill millions of Americans.

The threat isn't that North Korea or anyone else will nuke the U.S. They're probably smarter than that.

The real threat is that they'll sell components to terrorists who will smuggle them into the U.S. across our porous southern borders, then detonate them in a big city ala Jericho.

This threat is a lot more real than any other we face, IMHO.

i've never paid for cable or satellite. the service has just never seemed to offer me any value: while there's some decent content, it's overwhelmed by noise, and i'm not willing to schedule my life around the box. today, i watch several programs regularly, however.

take, for example, Lost, Jericho, and Heroes. three different networks, prime-time big-money shows, and each of their networks distributes the latest episode online for free. sure, it's in some stupid flash player, which diminishes the experience (prevents portability, inhibits replay, and - particularly the ABC player - can be buggy), but that's a huge shift in outlook on the part of the major networks from even two years ago. the official distributions contain commercials, but that's a trade-off well worth it (ABC's model is particularly nice: watch 'em once, then scroll around however you want, including watching the whole show straight through without interruption). i have no idea what the user population of these sorts of services are today, but i strongly believe they'll continue to grow.

then there's DVD series. i've watched far more "television" shows via DVD in the past year than i have off broadcast+cable+satellite in the past five (like i said, i don't have "television" in the normal sense). there's some unanswered questions about this as an model in itself - how do you know which shows to watch? where's the up-front production money come from? - but, again, that model seriously diminishes the "need" for "traditional" television. and i'm certainly not alone on this front: this is a very big market already.

and this is just the officially sanctioned means. if i remember correctly, ABC lets you watch back episodes through their player, NBC not; bittorrent to the rescue. eztv even specializes in exactly this sort of television content shifting.

then there's iTunes. their pricing model is informative. personally, i think it's too high: i've bought some short movies, but wouldn't pay that much for a television show/season. however, when you look at what people actually pay for cable/satallite - which can easily top $100/month - it's actually not a bad deal, by the numbers. if the quality was higher, i might be inclined to get, say, Lost and Battlestar Galactica this way; alternately, if the current product was available for, say, $20-25/season.

the "slow erosion of traditional television broadcasting" is already upon us, and is only going to accelerate with increased broadband adoption and data rates. and good riddance.

:)

In response to Apple's ridiculous stand on "podcast," CBS is now referring to their "podcasts" as "netcasts."

http://www.cbs.com/netcast/

NUMB3RS Stars David Krumholtz, who had a big part in Serenity. Krumholtz plays a mathemetician that uses math and computers to help catch the bad guys. They actually have a mathemetician on staff to help write the script (I have a friend who's an editor on the show).

I think most people will want 2 capture devices--watching one thing and recording another is normal, right?

You don't need two capture devices to watch one thing while recording another. You need two capture devices to record two shows that are on at the same time. Since you watch only stuff that's already been recorded, you can do that anytime, regardless of what the tuners are doing. Next Tuesday, for instance, Overhaulin' and The Unit are on at the same time. Overhaulin' gets recorded on one of the PVR-500's tuners, while The Unit gets recorded (in HD) from the FireWire output on the cable box.

The scheduler can often resolve conflicts by recording one show at an earlier or later date than the other (for instance, Overhaulin' is repeated three hours later), but if I wanted to record both The Unit and House, there's no way to resolve that scheduling conflict without having more than one capture device.

CBS airs it at 10PM. [source]

Let's take a stroll down history lane... [wiki:CBS]
In 2004 the FCC imposed a record $550,000 fine on CBS for its broadcast of a Super Bowl half-time show (produced by then sister-unit MTV) in which singer Janet Jackson's breast was briefly exposed. It was the largest fine ever for a violation of federal decency laws. Following the incident CBS apologized to its viewers and denied foreknowledge of the event, which was broadcast live.

CBS suffered another embarrassment in September of that year, when the network aired a controversial episode of its newsmagazine, 60 Minutes, which questioned U.S. President George W. Bush's service in the National Guard. Later, it was revealed that the documents CBS used were forged. CBS News eventually acknowledged that it could not verify the authenticity of the documents it obtained, although it maintains the other overall findings in relation to Bush's military service. The following January, CBS fired four people connected to the preparation of this news-segment. CBS Evening News anchor and 60 Minutes reporter Dan Rather resigned before the announcement of these firings, though he claimed that his decision had been made prior to the forged-documents matter.

This'll make their third major embaressment.

Ignoring all the knee-jerk reactions, you should watch the video yourself before you post.
Here: http://www.parentstv.org/ptc/action/withoutatrace/ content.htm [wmv alert]

Rated PG and airing at 10PM on CBS, it's a drunken teen party where everybody not afraid to find a partner (or 2, 3, ...) and get busy. Granted, that's not what the show is all about.

According to CBS.com:
WITHOUT A TRACE is a riveting procedural drama about the New York Missing Persons Squad of the FBI. The sole responsibility of the special task force is to find missing persons by applying advanced psychological profiling techniques to peel back the layers of the victims' lives and trace their whereabouts in an effort to discover whether they have been abducted, been murdered, committed suicide or simply run away. The team reconstructs a "Day of Disappearance" timeline that details every minute of the 24 hours prior to the disappearance and digs into every facet of the victim's life, following one simple rule: learn who the victim is in order to learn where the victim is.

Watered down CSI? Maybe. The show focuses on teen victims, so that probably explains the placement of that scene (flashback, actually).

I really don't think CBS deserved this, but they'll likely take it for fear of negative PR. It shows at 10PM for chrissake's! Who watches TV at that hour and isn't a pervert?

2c

Uh, haven't we already tried this?

Could someone explain to me why so many folks on reality shows are in "Pharmaceutical Sales"? I swear, every Survivor, Big Brother etc season seems to have at least one.

For example:

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor11/survivors/ bio_stephenie.shtml

or

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor7/survivors/b io/tijuana.shtml

or

http://www.realitytvmagazine.com/blog/2005/07/apri l_lewis_a_p.html

Could someone explain to me why so many folks on reality shows are in "Pharmaceutical Sales"? I swear, every Survivor, Big Brother etc season seems to have at least one.

For example:

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor11/survivors/ bio_stephenie.shtml

or

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor7/survivors/b io/tijuana.shtml

or

http://www.realitytvmagazine.com/blog/2005/07/apri l_lewis_a_p.html

Intersting question. To figure that out you would have to attatch a value to the time that a single person spends watching a commercial.

When television stations and networks sell advertising space they charge a fee per thousand viewers. The average cost per thousand audience members, or CPM, for broadcast television is $12, or $11, depending on who you ask.

Say you wanted to buy airtime on the the season finale of Survivor, which had an audience of about 36 million Americans (god help us). If CBS charged a CPM of $12, a thirty second spot would cost 36 million / 1000 * 12 = $432000.

If 30 seconds of 1000 average audience members' time is worth $12, then one person's time would be worth 1.2 cents.

A typical, thirty minute block of television includes eight minutes of comercials. That's sixteen 30 second spots. So during your average sitcom, a television network and station pimps your time, as an audience member, for an average of 19.2 cents (1.2*16)?

Does that mean we'd get commercial free tv for 40 cents an hour? I wouldn't get my hopes up...

First of all, it's 5 words. Second of all, have you ever heard the song? You would never know that they're saying "Motherfuckers." That particular lyric is so hard to understand that this song was even broadcast uncensored on CBS the other night during the Victoria Secret Fashion Show (Loud Annoying Music Warning). They must not have checked the lyrics before choosing the track... BTW, this track can be found here.

Does it look like one of these?

:)

OMG It's Threshold http://www.cbs.com/primetime/threshold/

csi claims they use real techniques and real forensic science in their program.

csi's official homepage has "online reference" they use to bolster this claim.

and csi's claims to be using real techniques and real science are impeding real cases.

true -- people are stupid, but CSI has an ethnical responsibility to make it clear their program is entirely fiction. the producers deliberately chose to mislead their audience into believing their program is scientifically and technically accurate in the name of profit. do you want a jury loaded with CSI propaganda judging your case?

That of course leads to being chased by a midget, a crazy bitch, and Brent Spiner...

Threshold

• If you want to restore credibility, follow through on the commitment you made 10 years ago and make Java into an ISO/ANSI standard, with no strings attached.

Hah? Who at Sun said that and when? Link please.

• Stop worrying about Microsoft trying to take away Java from you--that has already happened, and you only have yourself to blame for it.

And again, hah? Microsoft spent $2B to make that problem go away; that's a nice paycheck to Sun for doing that particular bit of "worrying."

• Stop interfering with open source projects and drop your compatibility requirements--they are unenforceable, nobody gives a damn, and you only hurt yourself by antagonizing people with them.

I think you'd find that to be debatable, but the only proof would come if they did drop the requirements and the inevitable swarm of things called "Java" that weren't started making everyone's life a living hell.

• When it comes to Java toolkits, either put up or shut up--either open source Swing or stop whining when people roll their own (SWT).

Ah, the whirring sound of axes being ground.

• Let the market decide on APIs, not some bloated self-appointed "standards" body (the JCP).

Because Standards are Bad.

• Stop bad-mouthing open source--it only pisses of the few potential supporters you still have.

Yeah, Sun's been pretty down on open source these days.

You could start gaining some credibility by firing Schwartz.

What, and miss out on gems like this?

• Stop being such gearheads; nobody really cares anymore whether your kernel is any better--you aren't going to rise back to glory with a better kernel.

Because Innovation is Bad.

• Oh, McNealy, by the way, you aren't Bill Gates and you never will be.

Feature.

Frankly, while those recommendations

...which boil down to "I have a beef with the way you run Java, I don't like your execs, and I've got a minor chubby for Microsoft"

may improve your chances, I still think Sun's future is bleak. Sun got big early on because they sold cheap machines with software that did stuff nobody else did, and they sold it to people like me who then, for about a decade, were loyal customers. But all of that is history. If Sun doesn't want to disappear completely, they still need a better strategy than selling Opterons.

Good thing for them, then, that their strategy is a heck of a lot more than selling Opterons.

That's impossible to imagine in today's culture.

Not quite...

is it real? sounds a lot like the 3rd episode of numb3rs http://www.cbs.com/primetime/numb3rs/index.shtml/

This was the first thing to come to mind when I read this story. Anyone else watch it?
I've only seen a couple episodes, and while it doesn't actually go into the math, it seems to glamorize mathematicians.
Plus, it is a decent crime drama.

You stole that idea from the Dirty Bomb episode of NUMB3RS!

Yet I'm not convinced that this would be a good name for it.

Unfortunately the name reminds me of a stupid detective show.

I didnt realize that John Becker was a gamer. Funny article though.

Reality TV: I'm watching it, because it's often funnier or more exciting than scripted shows. I don't watch sitcoms anymore. The good reality shows have funnier one-liners and more interesting personalities than I'm going to find in the seventy-eighth season of "Will & Grace". The good reality shows' storylines are less predictable than most scripted shows, and the characters are often more interesting.

I'm really sick of people grouping all reality TV together and dismissing it as a lump. Just like with scripted TV, there are different types of reality shows of varying quality. Just because "According to Jim" is kind of lame, does that mean "Battlestar Galactica" isn't worth watching? Hardly. One is a sitcom, the other is a sci-fi drama. One is about pandering to the lowest common denominator, the other is about quality storytelling.

Some broad categories of reality TV are Competitive, How-To, and Candid. Examples of each type would be "Survivor," "Trading Spaces," and "Real World." Each category has its good and bad shows, and there are enough out there to suit any taste. But if I can recommend a few for the reality-show skeptic:
- America's Next Top Model: come for the beautiful girls, stay for the wacky cast of judges who steal the show
- The Amazing Race: travel around the world, it's one of the best-edited shows of any kind on TV right now
- Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee: it's supposed to be serious, but it's funnier than any sitcom; this lady just ain't right

The BBC seems to apologize a lot for their reporting, do a quick search and you will find many examples. Here is a few:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ifs/hi/newsid_4220 000/newsid_4222300/4222353.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ifs/hi/newsid_4270 000/newsid_4273300/4273385.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ifs/hi/newsid_4030 000/newsid_4032600/4032665.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_ra dio/1544897.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1050290.s tm
http://www.vermontguardian.com/dailies/0904/0322.s html
http://cbsnews.cbs.com/stories/2003/03/21/iraq/mai n545215.shtml
http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/03/news/beeb.h tml
http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/jan/28bbc.htm

Some are serious, some are ridiculous. But in the end, apologies result from improper reporting, much different than a simple correction.

Bravo! I admit, it is one of the shows that I enjoy - along with Fullmetal Alchemist, Samurai Jack, and One Piece (The Fansubbed version, not the abomination on "4Kids TV" - blecch!) among others.

So I have eclectic tastes - so sue me. I also like "Hey! Spring Of Trivia" (SpikeTV - a Japanese Gameshow), Survivor, The Entertainer (just ended), Nova, Antiques Roadshow, and have a morbid fascination with Carpocalypse.

In any case, the best thing about true anime shows, IMO, is that they are *not* designed for *American* kids. Ever since Johnny Quest went off the air, American Cartoons have been watered down dreck. If CN can actually capture some of the story depth and maturity of real Japanese Anime (even the lightest Anime is deeper than any Network cartood that I can think of), then I will do nothing but cheer them on. If they stick it with an 'american' depth and maturity, I'll turn it off.

Nah, the fast forward allows your team to proceed directly to the next pit stop without having to complete any further tasks.

Anheuser-Busch, the largest advertiser with 10 of the 30-second ad slots on Fox's Feb. 6 broadcast, produced a humorous spot that purports to show what really caused Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction" in last year's Super Bowl halftime on CBS.

From my AQFL site.

NCIS is in my opinion, the best of the 3. They tend to concentrate as much on character and witty dialogue as the investigation itself (however, all the computer stuff they do is very deeply flawed at best. It always amazes me how much money they invest in making pretty graphics for those scenes but spend $0 researching them for plausibility).

We get enough laws written, we'll be just like roman empire was at the end of its days. Its inevitable.

So basically, we're talking about a computerized version of the TV show Survivor? That could be very interesting. I'm betting a good strategy for that game is to create a small alliance which as a unit plays tit-for-tat against the others.

See the article in the Boston Globe: Authenticity backed on Bush documents. I think I did quite well, considering I am not a full-time document investigator.

Denial is thinking George W. Bush is not a recovered alcoholic, and that he is able to be fully mentally engaged in being a leader. Don't you see the puzzled look on his face as he reads things that are written for him?

Have you ever seen the "presidential moments" on the Late Show with David Letterman? These are network footage of George W. Bush doing something really inappropriate. According to Letterman, and a lot of people, George W. Bush doesn't really want to be there. That seems right to me. Bill Clinton, a child of severe alcoholics and severely affected by it, but not an alcoholic himself, at least has an interest in government. To me it seems that GWB has no real interest.

Look at the recent presidents:

Richard Nixon: Twenty-four of the top officials in his administration went to jail for extremely serious crimes. He himself was pardoned.

Jimmy Carter: A good man, but far too inexperienced at running large organizations to be president.

Ronald Reagan: An ACOA, Adult Child of Alcoholics. His father was a severe drunk, and very abusive. Reagan exhibited a lot of the characteristics of ACOAs.

George H. W. Bush: Raised an alcoholic. His grandchildren have severe problems with drugs. Life in the Bush family is so stressful that the children turn to drugs to try to cope:

"The daughter of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was arrested... ... while allegedly trying to buy the anti-anxiety drug Xanax." (Jeb Bush is George W. Bush's brother.) Noelle Bush was arrested and charged with fraud, not for trying to buy marijuana, but for trying to buy an anti-anxiety drug. Why was she willing to break the law to buy a drug to become less anxious? Because living in her family is very anxiety-producing?

George W. Bush's daughters seem to be imitating their alcoholic father. The BBC article, Alcohol sentence for Bush daughter, says that "Barbara and Jenna Bush were both charged." Ask yourself, why do these teenage women feel they need a drug like alcohol so badly that they are willing to break the law?

Bill Clinton: Severely affected by the fact that both of this parents were violent alcoholics. President Clinton would often seem like he was lying even when he wasn't.

George W. Bush: A recovered alcoholic. George W. Bush was arrested once for the crime of DUI and Dick Cheney twice:

George W. Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest George W. Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest

Dick Cheney DUI, record of 1st arrest Dick Cheney DUI, record of 2nd arrest

DUI means "Driving Under the Influence" of alcohol. A DUI is a conviction for a very serious crime, a crime that endangers everyone on the road, a crime that often kills people. A DUI conviction means that the driver felt such a strong need to be drunk that he or she was willing to take a chance of murder.

According to his wife Laura Bush and George W. Bush himself, she threatened to leave him because of his drinking.

Denial is thinking that all of this doesn't matter. Denial is thinking that the U.S. does not have a leadership problem.

If they mean this Richard Hatch

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor/survivors/ri chard.shtml

All I can say is... FRACK.

Ok, so I know this is /., but I've found the best show on TV (to my knowledge) that challenges beliefs on a weekly basis is Joan of Arcadia.

Oh come on, don't flame the non-sci-fi aspect of this show. If you liked some of the challenges that Star Trek TOS gave to the viewer (ok, so a little ham-handedly and with horrible acting), you would probably enjoy JoA.

Hell, I'm a devout athiest and I really enjoy the show. Give it a viewing before you flame me!

Ok, if it helps, the main character is hot.

There are people who complain that the machines are "so complicated", but publically admitting that you couldn't figure it out is equivalent to admitting that you are stupid, and people don't like to do that.

Dude, in America, we're like, so not into being like smart and all.
Awww! You made me miss the best part of my favorite show!

It's really a shame -- TV has really stupefied the youth. I'm not blaming Beavis & Butthead -- I'm blaming the parents who have a TV in every room, and allow their children to become drooling idiots while they watch it.

Chip H.

Why cant anyone make something like this?

Because people want to see actors that look like this instead of like this.

Both sides are throwing out complaint websites. I'd really like to see Dish succeed at this - the local cable company just told us it was raising rates $3/mo. Good to see Dish is standing up for the extortion Viacom is doing.

Dish has two links to complain: Complain to CBS here with a web form
E-mail them directly here


Wonder if we could slashdot CBS's web form? (grin)

Who is actually recording television anymore? With what they consider quality television, I'm surprized more people aren't doing more interesting things like taking a Craftsman cordless drill to the soles of their feet or jamming needles in their armpits.

The lameness filter is lame...
Apple Computer commercial
Anheuser-Busch commercial"
Coke commercial
Levi's commercial
McDonalds commercial
Mountain Dew commercial
Noxzema commercial
Pepsi commercial
Tobasco commercial
Xerox commercial

The lameness filter is lame...
Apple Computer commercial
Anheuser-Busch commercial"
Coke commercial
Levi's commercial
McDonalds commercial
Mountain Dew commercial
Noxzema commercial
Pepsi commercial
Tobasco commercial
Xerox commercial