TV Series World

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NBC is close to telling Donald Trump "You're fired," but the network is holding back just in case they could use him at the last minute.

The future of his NBC series "The Apprentice" was cast into extreme doubt on Monday by the network's announcement of a 2007-08 programming lineup that made no mention of Trump or the corporate-themed reality show he hosts.

Such an omission, coming at the outset of the networks' annual "upfront" advertising market, would normally spell doom for a low-rated show like "The Apprentice." But NBC executives refused to absolutely rule out an 11th-hour reprieve for Trump's show.

"The Apprentice," which turned billionaire Trump into a TV star and introduced his catch phrase "You're fired," features a group of young, aggressive entrepreneurs in a weekly game of elimination as they vie for a real-life job in Trump's business empire. But the series has lost nearly two-thirds of its audience since its first and most successful run in the spring of 2004.

Asked whether "Apprentice" was now effectively dead, NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly insisted, "Not yet."

He said NBC would wait until after the other major networks have unveiled their new programming lineups before rendering a final judgment on the fate of Trump's show.

"Donald still wants to do the show. (Executive producer) Mark (Burnett) wants to do the show," Reilly said. "We couldn't find the right spot for it. So we're going to regroup after everybody announces their schedule. We're going to look at everything in context and then make a decision about it."

There was no immediate comment from Trump.

"The Apprentice" achieved hit status during its original incarnation, averaging 20.7 million viewers with help from a huge ratings "lead-in" following the mega-hit comedy "Friends" on the NBC schedule during that show's final season.

But the show has suffered a steady ratings decline since then, hitting an audience low of just 7.5 million viewers for the recently concluded sixth edition set in Los Angeles.

Trump and NBC still have other joint interests, however.

The two announced in March a renewed deal to keep annual broadcasts of the
Miss USA and
Miss Universe pageants, which Trump co-owns, on the General Electric Co.-controlled network through 2010.

"We want to stay in business with Donald in whatever format that will take," Reilly said on Monday. "The guy has a certain magic. We love him."

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Critics like to talk about shows using pejoratives such as "formulaic" and "predictable," but CBS' "The King of Queens" turned those negatives into positives.

The show, revolving around the improbable marriage of a blue-collar deliveryman with a monstrous appetite (
Kevin James) and his long-suffering wife (
Leah Remini), ends its nine-year run Monday with a one-hour episode.

Cut from the same cloth as "The Honeymooners," the comedy was dependably funny. Audiences quickly got comfortable with the couple's weekly bickering, knowing that deep down they truly loved each other.

James recently discussed the show's awkward start and the (vague) possibility of a reunion.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: CRITICS WERE NOT KIND TO "THE KING

OF QUEENS" WHEN IT DEBUTED, SO IT MUST FEEL PRETTY GOOD RIGHT

NOW NOT ONLY TO HAVE PROVEN THEM WRONG BUT TO HAVE SEEN THE NEW

YORK TIMES WRITE ABOUT THE SHOW'S CREATIVE RESURGENCE IN THE

LAST FEW SEASONS.

Kevin James: Whether they like or don't like the show, that's fine, you know? It's very difficult in the beginning to identify with a character. It takes a little while, and if a show can survive long enough for people to really get into the characters and identify with them, that's a great thing. Unfortunately, a lot of decent shows don't get that opportunity, and they're canceled really quick when they could have turned out to be a great show as well.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER THE KEY TO THE

SHOW'S SUCCESS? MOST SHOWS DON'T REACH 100 EPISODES, LET ALONE 200 THESE DAYS.

James: I think in the beginning, we were in a hammock spot. We were in between "Cosby" and "Everybody Loves Raymond," and "Raymond" was kind of doing really well, and we kind of piggybacked on them for a while until we got strong enough legs. We kind of developed a little audience that followed us and liked us, and when they moved us, we panicked, but we held on like they couldn't kill us.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: HOW DOES IT FEEL TO LEAVE BEHIND A

CHARACTER THAT YOU'VE PLAYED FOR NINE YEARS?

James: No doubt about it, it's amazing. It's longer than I've done anything in my life. I've never held a job for that long, so in that respect it's bittersweet, you know? You look back, and you're proud of what you did, and you're like, "Wow, this was really a great run." But you just miss everybody so much -- it's this feeling of, "How can we re-create this? Can we go on more?" It's so sad because right down to everybody on the crew, I spent more time with them than I did with my actual family in the last nine years.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: YOU'RE STARRING IN UNIVERSAL'S

COMEDY "I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY" WITH ADAM SANDLER

THIS JULY. ARE YOU PLANNING ON PURSUING FILM FULL TIME NOW, OR

WOULD YOU EVER CONSIDER DOING ANOTHER PRIMETIME SERIES?

James: I would! Not right away -- I think people are kind of sick of me in primetime. I'm going to enjoy my daughter, (and) we've got another girl on the way, so I'm going to be enjoying them for a little bit. But definitely, I would never rule out doing a sitcom again because I just had so much fun. The hours are the greatest, and as much as I love film -- and I do -- there's no replacement for that live audience. It's something that I've grown accustomed to over the last 10 years, and it's something I know I'm going to miss. I get it a little bit with stand-up, but I just miss doing a different play every week.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: IT SEEMS LIKE IT GIVES YOU AN

OPPORTUNITY TO KIND OF REINVENT THE SHOW EVERY WEEK. IF YOU'RE

NOT HAPPY WITH ONE EPISODE, YOU'VE GOT NEXT WEEK.

James: Exactly. It's like we did 207 very short movies. When you're working on a movie for what could be two years from writing to (shooting) and editing, if it's something that doesn't do well, it's so brutal. I feel for these people that have movies bomb out of the gate -- it's out of the theater a couple weeks later, and it's gone. It's so much effort for this one night, one weekend. That is the one benefit of a TV show: If you miss one week, you go, "All right, we'll get 'em next week."

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: SO, SHOULD WE KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR

"THE KING OF QUEENS" REUNION SHOW IN A COUPLE YEARS?

James: I wouldn't hold your breath, but who knows? You never know. I'll never say never. I'm one of those guys who may just do it for my own benefit, just have them come over -- and we'll just act out a play in my house.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The influential Sunday news talk shows aired by U.S. television networks are overwhelmingly dominated by white men, with women, blacks and Latinos having little presence, a liberal media watchdog said on Monday.

About one in five guests on the programs were women, said the group, Media Matters for America, which studied four network Sunday news talk shows over a two-year period.

Blacks made up about 7 percent of those appearing on most of the programs, while Latinos made up about 1 percent, Media Matters said. In all, about seven out of every eight guests in 2005 and 2006 was white, the group said.

"Our report demonstrates the all-important Sunday shows are seriously lacking a meaningful presence of women and people of color," said David Brock, president of Media Matters.

The report came a month after radio host Don Imus lost his network television and radio shows for using a racial slur to describe the mostly black women's basketball team at Rutgers University.

The networks and prominent journalists who frequented Imus' show were criticized at the time because they had previously supported the program despite his track record of racist and sexist language.

Some critics said the Imus situation occurred in part because of a lack of diversity in the network newsrooms.

NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES - NBC is turning to science fiction this fall to lift ratings and appease advertisers and investors with new dramas whose story lines range from robotics to time travel.

Taking the wraps off its fall prime-time schedule on Monday, NBC executives made it clear that they were hoping to build on the success of the network's supernatural hit "Heroes" by introducing sci-fi dramas "Journeyman," "Chuck" and "The Bionic Woman" for the 2007-08 broadcast season.

The lineup is crucial for NBC, which has languished in a ratings rut since longtime comedy favorites "Friends" and "Frasier" ended three years ago. It trails in fourth place behind News Corp.'s Fox, CBS and Walt Disney Co.'s ABC in Nielsen rankings.

"I really feel great about what we're going to be rolling out today," NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly said during a conference call before the network officially unveils the lineup to advertisers later on Monday.

"We've got quality, and we're going to build out and add some breadth to our schedule, which is what we've needed," he added in introducing the lineup of five new dramas and one new comedy show.

The General Electric Co.-controlled broadcaster is kicking off the annual "upfront" advertising market in which some $9 billion in prime-time commercial commitments for the 2007-08 broadcast will be booked.

Negotiations between advertisers and the networks are likely to take longer than usual this year as both sides try to find out how to best structure deals to fit the changing TV landscape.

The spread of digital video recorders and the broadcast of shows over the Internet have transformed the way Americans watch TV.

Audience measurement standards are also changing. New ratings, slated for wide availability this year, will count how many people watch commercials or recordings of shows.

NBC executives have responded by aggressively pushing digital deals, saying on Monday that all programming will carry features like virtual tours of show sets.

The company's move toward digital was underscored recently when parent NBC Universal reached a deal with News Corp. to launch this summer a free online video site featuring movies and TV shows. Analysts see the venture as an attempt to challenge Google Inc.'s highly popular YouTube.

FALL LINEUP

NBC's schedule will get close scrutiny, given the pressure it is under to improve ratings. Some Wall Street analysts have even floated the idea that GE spin off NBC Universal because of its lackluster performance.

New shows will include a remake of the 1970s series "The Bionic Woman," a drama called "Journeyman" about a time-traveling journalist, and "Chuck," about a young computer whiz who becomes a government agent after espionage secrets are downloaded into his brain.

NBC also has ordered a second season of its critically praised but low-rated teen football drama, "Friday Night Lights," which won the prestigious Peabody Award last month.

Other shows that will be back for another season include "The Biggest Loser," "The Office," "30 Rock," "Deal or No Deal," "My Name Is Earl," "Las Vegas," "Scrubs," "ER," "Law & Order" and "Law & Order: SVU."

Another version of the "Law & Order" crime-drama series, "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," will move to NBC Universal's USA cable network for original broadcasts. Repeats will then run on NBC, a reversal of the normal pattern where shows first air on network and then move to cable.

Among high-profile shows, NBC has canceled "Crossing Jordan" and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," while saying it has not yet decided on the fate of real estate mogul Donald Trump's "The Apprentice."

Besides "The Bionic Woman," "Journeyman" and "Chuck," NBC is picking up a new drama, "Life," about a wrongly imprisoned police officer returning to the force.

NBC is also picking up variety and game shows "1 Vs. 100" and "The Singing Bee," which will run for eight and six weeks, respectively, in the fall.

Later in the year, NBC will roll out "The Lipstick Jungle," based on a best-selling book by "Sex and the City" writer Candace Bushnell. It will also introduce the "IT Crowd," a comedy about misunderstood techies, during the 2007-08 season.

SOBSA, Bhutan - Since cable television first arrived in her tiny village in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan two years ago, 55-year-old Kencho Om keeps getting in trouble with her husband for staying up late watching movies.

"My husband scolds me, he says at this age I should be spending my time saying my prayers," she said, sitting on the bare floorboards of her front room, the walls broken only by a shelf on which her small television set is perched.

"He says that after I die, instead of doing the funeral rituals, he will just put my body next to a television."

Bhutan's citizens first started watching television after then-King Jigme Singye Wangchuck bowed to the inevitable in 1999 and allowed it into his isolated Buddhist realm.

Since then, it has been blamed for destroying family life, bringing crime and juvenile delinquency to this peaceful land and undermining ancient traditions.

This is a country that lived in a mediaeval bubble a generation ago. When the first jeep arrived in the capital Thimpu in the 1960s, locals ran in fear of the fire-breathing dragon. Others brought it cattle feed.

Less than four decades later, Bhutan was suddenly confronted with 45 channels of the outside world.

Wangchuck is famous for proposing that Gross National Happiness was more important than Gross National Product, that traditions, trust and the environment were as important as the ruthless pursuit of material gain.

Yet almost overnight the Bhutanese were presented with an alternative vision -- of glamour and wealth -- and bombarded with advertisements for products they never knew they had missed.

Information and Communication Minister Leki Dorji says the government is beginning to wonder what it has unleashed.

"What we are asking is this: 'does television make you happier or less happy?'," he told Reuters. "It raises your expectations, probably making you more unhappy."

The people of Bhutan do not seem to agree. A study carried out by the information ministry in 2003 found that many people felt television had broadened their minds.

More than 66 percent said television had had a positive impact on society, while just 7.3 percent disagreed.

DESTROYING FAMILY LIFE?

Still, criticism persists. Petty crime and recreational drugs, almost unheard of a decade ago, have arrived in the last decade.

"Advertisements create desires, which cannot be satisfied by people's current economic position," wrote Phuntsho Rapten of the Centre for Bhutan Studies. "Crimes and corruption are often born out of economic desires."

But it is not just television which is to blame. Thousands of people have migrated from the countryside to towns, and many have not found jobs.

There are benefits, too -- television can bring families together in the evening, and keep fathers at home rather than out drinking. Alcohol is the leading form of death in Bhutan and a traditional pastime.

Yet many men share the reservations of Om's husband.

"I hate television," said Chencho Tshering, acting managing director of Kuensel, the state-owned newspaper, reminiscing about a recent night when the cable service went down.

His wife was deprived of her Hindi soap operas and his three daughters missed "Friends" and the Cartoon Network, but the whole family came together and started talking about the past.

"That was the best night I can remember since 1999," he said.

WRESTLING BANNED

The education children get from television is not something all Bhutanese parents relish. A craze for American wrestling swept the country's schools after TV was introduced.

Teachers have complained that city children were watching late into the night and were less focused in class as a result.

The government has responded by banning Ten Sports, which carried the wrestling, as well as MTV and Fashion TV.

It has not been an entirely successful experiment -- wrestling appeared on other channels, while football fans complain bitterly as the ban deprives them of Europe's Champions League.

Tshering Yonten, media director in the information ministry, says there was a need to regulate what people watch.

"The issue is not to deprive people, but the government has to take some responsibility."

Some Bhutanese worry that their traditions are threatened by the march of globalization. Yet national culture is unlikely to roll over and die.

Young people dress like their foreign idols in the evening, but have to go to work in the traditional knee-length gown, or gho, worn with long socks.

Bhutan's public broadcaster, launched in a hurry three months after the king's move to allow television, is now broadcasting its own, increasingly popular soap opera.

And Bhutan has suddenly found its own film industry, which dominates the cinemas of Thimpu.

Back in Sobsa, her teeth stained red with chewing betel nut and her feet caked with mud, Om disagrees with the TV bashers.

Every night she escapes to Bollywood films of
Salman Khan, to wildlife documentaries or American war movies.

"Without television, life is quite boring here," she said. "It is good to see the outside world. I've seen Japanese farmers cultivating rice, and it's almost the same as we do it here."