Last week, after 39-year-old Jeff Zucker was crowned president of the newly merged NBC Universal Television Group--now the biggest broadcasting company in America--the only question remaining for the NBC loyalists under Mr. Zucker’s management was: Why stop there? “I think Jeff would settle for President of the United States,” said Lawrence O’Donnell, a writer for Read More
“I’m breaking down in all kinds of stress-related illnesses,” confessed Greg Daniels, the 41-year-old executive producer behind NBC’s The Office: An American Workplace, the forthcoming remanufactured British comedy starring former Daily Show correspondent Steve Carell. “Just because it’s something I want so badly to work, because it’s something that I would want to watch.” Though Read More
The Observer has learned that former Vice President Al Gore and business partner Joel Hyatt, an entrepreneur and Democratic fund-raiser, will close the deal to pay around $70 million to French-owned Vivendi Universal this week, making them the owners of the tiny digital-cable channel Newsworld International (NWI), moving Mr. Gore from politics to mini-media-moguldom. Mr. Read More
EASTLAND, TEX.—Three days before Dan Rather was to retire from the CBS Evening News on March 9, the man who gave him the suspicious memos that precipitated his departure as anchor sat in a Mexican restaurant here, 126 miles west of Dallas. Former National Guardsman Bill Burkett, 55, has grown a full, white beard since Read More
That stopwatch stops for no man. Don Hewitt, the 80-year-old executive producer, inventor, backbone and spiritual stiff upper lip of CBS’ 60 Minutes, has always been a man who valued the blunt truth. As Mr. Hewitt told Larry King on CNN last year, he preferred the days when politicians called each other “a son of Read More
This week, as NBC hammers out details on its proposed merger with Vivendi Universal Entertainment, former Vice President Al Gore is trying to finalize his own deal: the purchase of a Universal-owned digital news channel called Newsworld International, a transaction that could herald Mr. Gore’s official transformation from historical footnote to media player with the Read More
At 33, James Frey has a humble ambition: He wants to be the greatest literary writer of his generation. And like the guy in the film Memento, he’s got a cryptic note tattooed on his left arm should he forget: “F.T.B.S.I.T.T.T.D.”
“It means ‘FUCK THE BULLSHIT IT’S TIME TO THROW DOWN,’” explained Mr. Frey, a fledgling Read More
At 33, James Frey has a humble ambition: He wants to be the greatest literary writer of his generation. And like the guy in the film Memento, he’s got a cryptic note tattooed on his left arm should he forget: “F.T.B.S.I.T.T.T.D.” “It means ‘FUCK THE BULLSHIT IT’S TIME TO THROW DOWN,’” explained Mr. Frey, a Read More
Tick, tick, tick, tick …
Tick. Nearly a year after his retirement, Don Hewitt, the 83-year-old inventor of 60 Minutes, is talking with PBS about creating a new project-an hour-long program consisting of three separate documentary segments. In other words, Mr. Hewitt's new idea is … 60 Minutes. "With general reality being shoved aside by NBC, Read MoreNearly a year after his retirement, Don Hewitt, the 83-year-old inventor of 60 Minutes, is talking with PBS about creating a new project-an hour-long program consisting of three separate documentary segments.
In other words, Mr. Hewitt's new idea is ... 60 Minutes. "With general reality being shoved aside by NBC, ABC and CBS for contrived reality Read More"The show we're doing has no precedent in American television history," declared Louis C.K., the 37-year-old standup comic.
He wasn't joking. But he did add a caveat: "I can't speak for British TV." In fact, Mr. C.K.'s HBO pilot is based squarely on precedent: It will be a half-hour situation comedy, complete with a kitchen-table-and-chairs set, Read More** Exclusive! **
SOURCES: WARREN BEATTY TO BLOG! The Observer has learned that Warren Beatty, the 68-year-old actor and director, will likely join a lineup of liberal all-stars who will "group blog" on a Web site to be launched next month by columnist Arianna Huffington. "I probably will," Mr. Beatty said, on the phone from his Read MoreA female soldier in fatigues stands at a phone booth, starkly framed against a clean, white U.S. Army barracks, fretting over her imminent deployment to Iraq. "I know I'm going to get killed," she says, nervously fingering the phone cord. "I've seen those faces on Nightline. Every one of 'em's me." The comment comes early Read More
"Karl Rove started talking to me again," John Roberts, CBS News' White House correspondent, said of President Bush's chief political advisor and deputy chief of staff for policy at the White House.
That was fast. Dan Rather left the CBS Evening News March 10, and now that the White House has gotten what it wanted, history Read MoreOne evening last summer at the Players Club, Kimberlee Auerbach, an almond-eyed 32-year-old with a moony smile, a voluptuous figure and an ear-splitting laugh, was introduced to some men as an employee of Fox News Channel.
"One of the guys said, 'God, and you look so nice,'" she recounted. "And I started to get defensive, saying, Read More
