The Remote Island

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• Debra Messing Is Coming Back To NBC

  The Peacock won a bidding war for the former Grace Adler's new single-camera comedy, which sounds very recession-y... Read More... Posted Apr 22 2009, 12:36 PM by Jake Kalish with | with no comments Filed under: Will and Grace, the recession, Debra Messing, The Starter Wife

• "Real Housewives": Real Broke

  So much for aspirational television. Apparently most of the Real Housewives of Atlanta are having serious money issues. Find out just how desperate their situation is, after the jump. Read More... Posted Dec 17 2008, 10:27 AM by Jake Kalish with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Real Housewives of Atlanta, the recession

• "Million Dollar Password"??? We'd Settle For "Bus Fare Password"

  Seriously, won't this show ever die? Read More... Posted Dec 15 2008, 09:35 AM by Jake Kalish with | with no comments Filed under: game shows, Aisha Tyler, William Shatner, Regis Philbin, the recession, Million Dollar Password, Password

• No Hiring, Only Firing In The TV Industry

  Things have gotten so bad in the TV business that both CNN and NBC have fired the people in charge of on-air hiring. Guess since there won't be any hiring any time soon, might as well not pay a big salary to someone whose job it is to hire people. We had a feeling things were getting dire -- and believe us, this is dire -- the other day, when NBC's "I used to be a wunderkind" Ben Silverman was trying to sell us candy bars in the subway, for his "teebee station." We gave him quarters so he wouldn't start breakdancing. Posted Dec 11 2008, 10:35 AM by Jake Kalish with | with no comments Filed under: CNN, NBC, Ben Silverman, the recession

• When Leno Goes Primetime, Talk Shows Will Outnumber Other NBC Programming By Half-An-Hour

  There's been a ton of great writing on this whole "Leno in Primetime Land" thing -- Alan Sepinwall's scathing analysis for the NJ Star-Ledger, Bill Zehme's claustrophobically weird yet undeniably insightful essay on Leno for The Daily Beast -- but the most interesting thing we've read about the effects of Leno's move to 10 p.m. comes from the LA Times' business section... Read More... Posted Dec 11 2008, 09:32 AM by Jake Kalish with | with no comments Filed under: Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, The Tonight Show, Late Night With Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Fallon, the recession, Late Night talk shows

• NBC Fatcats Restructure TV Divisions To Save Some Loot, Cover Up Massive Mistakes

  For context, the inherent structural changes currently going on at NBC are roughly similar to the inherent structural changes that occur to a building when a wrecking ball hits it. Read More... Posted Dec 09 2008, 11:27 AM by Jake Kalish with | with no comments Filed under: NBC, Knight Rider, Donald Trump, Jay Leno, Coupling, Ben Silverman, Jeff Zucker, the recession

• Kathy Cox of "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader": A Really Good Person In A Really Bad Economy

  Back in September, Kathy Cox, the Georgia State Schools Superintendent, won $1 Million on Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?. Cox vowed to give all of her winnings to three Georgia schools for special-needs children. Then some complications arose: last week, Kathy and her husband John, who are in the home-building business, filed for bankruptcy. Read More... Posted Nov 26 2008, 05:27 PM by Jake Kalish with | with no comments Filed under: bankruptcy, the recession, Kathy Cox, Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?

• The Economy Is So Bad That Fox Is Swapping Saturday Morning Cartoons For Informercials

  div#main{overflow:visible;} Hey, everyone, if you thought that there was some wild injustice in kids being barraged by what are basically half-hour long commercials every Saturday morning, well, Fox agrees with you. "Get rid of the kids," they say, "and also make the commercials more commercially." Indeed! So they're gutting their Saturday lineup, and replacing it with infomercials. And frankly, we wonder if they'll be the only network to do it. If the world of Saturday morning is meant to be overrun by infomercials, will they be as amusing as Steve Brule's wondrous and strange attempt to sell the Griddleman? We can only hope so. Posted Nov 25 2008, 03:32 PM by Bryan Christian with | with no comments Filed under: Fox, the recession, Saturday morning cartoons

• Layoffs Mean TV Guide Will Only List Sundays through Wednesdays From Now On

  Ha ha, just kidding. But they did just fire 33 people, including their Deputy Editor... Read More... Posted Nov 19 2008, 12:30 PM by Jake Kalish with | with no comments Filed under: TV Guide, the recession, layoffs

• Wake Up And Smile: The NBC Christmas Party Just Got A Little Cheaper

  NBC dropped not one but two shows yesterday, but we can't help but think that the attention the cancellations got was bigger than the shows ever were. Why would that be...? PLUS: Monty Python's most famous bit is more historic-al than you think, Showtime and Stan Lee get together for... well, you'll just have to see, someone on 90210's days may be numbered, and finally, someone's starting to lay the blame on the new recession at the fatcats who really deserve it: fictional relatives on Must-See-TV. Read More... Posted Nov 14 2008, 09:25 AM by Bryan Christian with | with no comments Filed under: homosexuals, Showtime, NBC, Lipstick Jungle, Friends, strippers, My Own Worst Enemy, Dead Parrot Sketch, Monty Python, Carlos Mencia, the recession, Stan Lee