Eric Lieber, producer of the groundbreaking Dick Cavett and Mike Douglas talk shows as well as the creator of (my own beloved guilty pleasure) Love Connection, has passed away of leukemia at age 71.
posted on Jul 7, 2008 - View this thread

Channel 4 recreates The Shining to promote its Kubrick season. A 65-second tracking shot through a recreated Shining set, complete with look-alikes.
posted on Jul 6, 2008 - View this thread

Where creative juices come from. Now that you're in the mood, let's get down to some great new creative stuff! What is likely to be ripped off on College Humor next week! Learn how to interrogate a lemon! Previous creative goodness...
posted on Jul 5, 2008 - View this thread

This post about TV "firsts" got me to thinking about other first-time events not mentioned in the article. What was the first closed-captioned show? What was the first Pay-TV station? When did television sets start including a standard UHF dial?
posted on Jul 2, 2008 - View this thread

Branded in the 80's: Peel Here From the obvious to the obscure to the downright frightening, Peel Here documents the collectible stickers of the 80's and related ephemera.
posted on Jun 26, 2008 - View this thread

Product Placement Banned in U.K. Minister says it 'contaminates programs'.
posted on Jun 13, 2008 - View this thread

Once upon a time, movies were made that parodied broadcast television, advertisements and all. I knew there weren't many, but really, this was all I could find: The Groove Tube Tunnelvision Kentucky Fried Movie UHF Amazon Women on the Moon (Links are to YouTube trailers of variable quality)
posted on Jun 11, 2008 - View this thread

In Bed With Chris Needham (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) A BBC video-diary documentary from 1991 depicting the trails and tribulations of a teenage metal fan as he tries to knock his band, Manslaughter, into shape for its first gig, with many digressions into his philosophy of life along the way. Some NSFW swearing.
posted on Jun 8, 2008 - View this thread

A Day In The Afterlife of Philip K Dick - An Arena documentary first broadcast by the BBC in 1994 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
posted on Jun 6, 2008 - View this thread

The Black and White Minstrel Show was a (very cheesy) British variety series that ran Saturday nights on the BBC for twenty years. Hard to believe that it was still on the air as late as 1978. A live show, "Memories of the Minstrels ," toured the UK to packed houses in 2004 and 2005. The show was performed white-faced and featured the stars, medley's and costumes from the original TV series. Previously.
posted on Jun 4, 2008 - View this thread

First it was Blake's 7, now another Terry Nation cult classic sf television programme is to return. The BBC have announced they are remaking Survivors. Telling the story of the survivors of a plague that wipes out most of Britain, the original was famed for its gritty and somewhat controversial story-telling.
posted on Jun 3, 2008 - View this thread

Who do you want her to be... next year? Fans of Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku vow to save the television series Dollhouse from cancellation by Fox Television - eight months before it is scheduled to broadcast. Is this just guerilla fan-marketing, or are they serious? Or both? (previously on MetaFilter)
posted on Jun 2, 2008 - View this thread

"Lost is a far more ambitious piece of media, which uses the entire web as its canvas and its entire audience as its creators. I'd suggest this piece of work - Lost, when viewed in its entirety - is truly new."
posted on Jun 2, 2008 - View this thread

The Japanese master intercultural stereotyping. Is it racist when non-whites do blackface?
posted on May 25, 2008 - View this thread

Photos of TV On his blog, Mike Sacks has posted photographs taken from TV. via
posted on May 21, 2008 - View this thread

The classic post-pub television program of the nineties, In Bed With Medinner had a simple format - Bob Mills would present and comment on clips from the many documentaries he had made over the years.
posted on May 21, 2008 - View this thread

As of 2010 Steven Moffat will be replacing Russell T. Davies as lead writer and executive producer of Doctor Who. In 2005 Davies revived the series, which had been dormant (bar the odd US co-production or audiodrama) since 1989, for BBC Wales. It won awards and was successful enough to spawn the spin-offs Sarah Jane Adventures and the popular-in-America Torchwood. He is replaced by Moffat, one of the regular writers on the show, whose highly acclaimed episodes have won a number of awards and nominations. "I applied before but I got knocked back 'cos the BBC wanted someone else. Also I was seven. Anyway, I'm glad the BBC has finally seen the light and it's a huge honour to be following Russell into the best - and the toughest - job in television. I say toughest 'cos Russell's at my window right now, pointing and laughing."
posted on May 20, 2008 - View this thread

Dan Treacy and his band Television Personalities have had a long and storied history. Here's a nice little documentary (part one, two, three, four) on 'em.
posted on May 20, 2008 - View this thread

6 hours til Eurovision 2008 begins (well semi-final round 1 begins in 6 hours). After last year's extensive Eurovision discussion, let's see how 2008 does. There are a number of Eurovision blogs and many of the bloggers are hanging out in Belgrade. Not in Europe? You can watch online as well.
posted on May 20, 2008 - View this thread

Best rectal thermometer ever? And yes, it does play the theme song while taking your temperature.
posted on May 14, 2008 - View this thread

"We were treated like rock stars. I was told there were female Trekkies who kept lists of all the cast members with whom they'd slept. I was told this!" Extracts from 'Up To Now', the autobiography of William Shatner... from his time on Star Trek, where he comes over as the colossal jerk of legend, to his poignant recollections of the death of his third wife.
posted on May 12, 2008 - View this thread

From The Adventures of Twizzle to the reboot of Captain Scarlet - for nearly fifty years - Gerry Anderson made television shows, but is still best remembered for the classic 'Supermarionation' period were, as this documentary shows (1, 2, 3, 4) he really was making the 21st century.
posted on May 9, 2008 - View this thread

Gin, Television, and Social Surplus — Clay Shirky on post-broadcast societal outlets.
posted on Apr 26, 2008 - View this thread

Blake's Back! British science fiction classic Blakes 7 is getting the Battlestar Galactica treatment.
posted on Apr 25, 2008 - View this thread

Salvador Dali on "What's My Line?" - slyt
posted on Apr 19, 2008 - View this thread

Television military analysts are wooed, courted, and privileged by the Pentagon. An in-depth investigative report by the New York Times uncovers logrolling, shilling, touting, back-scratching, and just plain bias on the part of the experts that television networks put on the air to talk about the war. Some of them appear to be as good as owned by the Defense Department. "The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air. Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves."
posted on Apr 19, 2008 - View this thread

A West Wing Writer Imagines a Deadlocked Democratic Convention
posted on Apr 13, 2008 - View this thread

The dangers of being a TV news reporter. A guaranteed context-free three-minute montage of television field reports gone awry.
posted on Apr 8, 2008 - View this thread

Growing up in 70s and 80s Britain you were exposed to some rather disturbing Public Information Films on the television. But that was nothing...
posted on Apr 7, 2008 - View this thread

I'm baffled why these science fiction tv pilots never made it to series... especially Leonard Nimoy's Baffled!.
posted on Apr 6, 2008 - View this thread

"My name is Mike Wallace. The cigarette is Philip Morris." Before there was 60 Minutes, there was The Mike Wallace Interview. Thirty minutes with Steve Allen, Frank Lloyd Wright, Kirk Douglas, Pearl Buck, and Salvador Dali, to name just a few.
posted on Apr 4, 2008 - View this thread

NBC offers Way Back Wednesdays where you can watch full vintage episodes online of Rod Serling's Night Gallery, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Emergency, Battlestar Galactica, The A-Team, Buck Rogers, and Miami Vice.
posted on Apr 3, 2008 - View this thread

Inside Jeopardy: An interview with former writer/researcher Carlo Panno [Part 2] [Part 3]
posted on Mar 31, 2008 - View this thread

Enjoy over 170,000 screencaps of your favorite cable news personalities at ReporterCaps.com.
posted on Mar 30, 2008 - View this thread

The Truth Is Still Out There [link includes embedded video, scroll down for article]. Members of The X-Files' cast and crew (minus Anderson/Scully and Duchovny/Mulder) discuss the myths and legends surrounding the show, as well as the upcoming new movie, at the 2008 Paley Festival, sponsored by The Paley Center for Media (named for broadcaster William S. Paley, and formerly known as The Museum of Television & Radio). [Previous X-Files-related posts here.]
posted on Mar 27, 2008 - View this thread

If you were a North American kid (well, a kid stuck at home, younger than driving age) in the late 70s/early 80s, your Saturday nights were likely spent in front of the television watching The Love Boat. The show subsequently gained worldwide popularity. Did you know that the Pacific Princess is still ferrying the lovelorn across the blue abyss, and that she has a bridgecam? Did you know there were Love Boat action figures? For your nostalgic pleasure: complete episode guide, complete guest star list, theme song video (variations 1, 2, 3), lyrics and chords, and song facts.
posted on Mar 22, 2008 - View this thread

Sports Business Journal has a detailed look behind the buzz over "The Emperor’s New Clothes: How ESPN’s Multi-Platform Strategy Hasn’t Improved Ratings," a sharply critical PowerPoint presentation making the rounds of sports league offices and advertising buyers in recent months. A good read for folks interested in the business of sports, decreasing TV ratings for many leagues, the blurriness of the ad/news line and the difficulty of measuring eyeballs across media. [via Romenesko]
posted on Mar 17, 2008 - View this thread

While watching LOST, did you ever think, "Boy, what this show needs is an 80's-style theme song?" If so, you're in luck.
posted on Mar 14, 2008 - View this thread

One rather strange minor cultural phenomena you experienced as a kid growing up in 60s and 70s Britain was a number of television programs that originated from beyond the Iron Curtain. Most infamous was the downright scary The Singing Ringing Tree from East Germany (Radio4 doc), later spoofed by the Fast Show but there were several others...
posted on Mar 13, 2008 - View this thread

The new video, "Run", from R&B group Gnarls Barkley (best known for their ultra-popular and painfully ubitquitous 2006 hit song "Crazy") has been banned from MTV for failing the Harding Test, a set of criteria determining the likelihood of video material triggering seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy (PSE), approximately 1 in 6000 people^*. The video is now circulating online. [Watch at your own risk. May cause seizures.]
posted on Mar 8, 2008 - View this thread

Watch TV from around the world. Anything from Albania to Pakistan to Vietnam.
posted on Mar 1, 2008 - View this thread

"The most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression it has been my displeasure to hear," Frank Sinatra wrote of rock 'n' roll during the time of Elvis Presley. But Frank wasn't stupid... he knew his relevance was fading and if you can't beat 'em, you have to join 'em. So in 1960, Elvis Presley was welcomed home from his two year military tour by the Frank Sinatra Timex Show "Welcome Home Elvis" special. Later Sinatra said, "I'm just a singer. Elvis was the embodiment of the whole American culture."
posted on Feb 26, 2008 - View this thread

Free Star Trek. The only Star Trek that matters -- the ones with Kirk, Spock, Bones, and the rest.
posted on Feb 22, 2008 - View this thread

Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees was the first movie on the internet. Also, allegedly the first indie movie edited on a digital non-linear system. Mostly, though it's just awesome because it features a cameo from William S. Burroughs and is just plain weird.
posted on Feb 13, 2008 - View this thread

With the Writer's Guild of America strike possibly coming to close in a couple of days, you might be interested in a guide to when the various shows will be coming back.
posted on Feb 11, 2008 - View this thread

If you only watch the opening credits of 279 shows from the late 1980s, make it these 279 shows from the late 1980s.
posted on Feb 1, 2008 - View this thread

Remember when TV raised us right? Time for Timer taught us about cheese, carrots, breakfast, and oral hygiene. The Abominable Snowman taught us about lunch, money, advertising, and the Food Group Disco! Woodsy Owl taught us to Give a Hoot! and keep America lookin' good! and Mr Yuk SCARED THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF US.
posted on Feb 1, 2008 - View this thread

Edward Samuel's Illustrated History of Copyright A fascinating illustrated historical tour, looking at how different technologies have shaped how we think about copyright and intellectual property.
posted on Jan 31, 2008 - View this thread

Star Trek orgasms (nsfw). Bonus: Kirk, ultimate ladies man.
posted on Jan 31, 2008 - View this thread

With the success of American Gladiators and no writers in sight, tv networks are reaching into the past for ideas. You knew it would happen sooner or later. Yep... they're digging deep: Circus of the Stars is coming back. Could Battle of the Network Stars be far behind?
posted on Jan 19, 2008 - View this thread