Results tagged “americanidol”

"The Vampire Diaries" has its season premiere on The CW and it seems a little too late, too teenagery, and too lame to even consider turning on (and lookit how white everyone is). We think that, someday, most folks will realize that Twilight was crap also - David Duchovny's Hank Moody in the upcoming season of "Californication" succinctly guts the genre and it's well worth watching when it premieres later this month.

Oh, this is good. FOX has landed a deal with talk show host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres to become the newest American Idol judge, replacing Paula Abdul who quit the reality show this summer over salary issues. “I’m thrilled to be the new judge on American Idol,” said DeGeneres in Fox's news release, via The Wrap. ”I’ve watched since the beginning, and I’ve always been a huge fan. So getting this job is a dream come true, and think of all the money I’ll save from not having to text in my vote.” Har, har, Ellen, har... har.

"American Idol" fans listen up, your favorite judge, Paula Abdul, might not be returning according to her new manager. It would be a real tragedy for late night TV as about 50% of their material seems to be based on her during the "American Idol" season, and it would be a real tragedy for Paula Abdul as it seems unlikely that she has any other employment prospects other than to be the butt of late night TV jokes.

The TV Junkie Plan: "Deadliest Catch", "Out of the Wild", "Modern Toss", Letterman, Fallon.

We know it's a couple days away but we couldn't help talk up this Thursday night's NBC lineup: "The Office" will be back with 2 brand new episodes at 8pm and 9pm with the series premiere of Amy Poehler's highly anticipated "Parks and Recreation" sandwiched in between the two at 8:30pm. Check out the website of Pawnee, Indiana, the location of "Parks and Recreation" and of course the video snippets.

We love comedians Jim Gaffigan and Jamie Kaler so therefore we just kind of have to like TBS' "My Boys" which has its season premiere tonight. While the show isn't any less funny than any of the big network shows, Jim Gaffigan's bits are the highlight of every episode - we wish TBS would build a show around him as the lead, c'mon already.

Nielsen says that President Obama's latest press conference slipped in the ratings and that the CW series, "Reaper", gained (the implication is that Obama is suffering from overexposure). I'm not sure how many teens would be that in economics, much less everyday Americans. I guess former President Bush avoided these kind of comparisons by not doing press conferences and by spending more time on vacation than any other president.

Late night news: TBS is building a late night show around comedian/actor George Lopez (whom we have loved as Mayor Hernandez on "Reno 911"). The hour-long show will air at 11pm, Monday through Fridays but we're not so sure that it's a good move to go head to head with local news. We'll see what happens when the show launches. TBS has dabbled in late night comedy, with the Frank Caliendo vehicle, "Frank TV", which has not been renewed, and the admirable "10 Items or Less", headed by John Lehr, which is up for renewal now.

Ad spending in the US dropped by 2.6% in 2008, with only cable increasing ad revenue for the year. TV and cable still retained a leadership position as the preferred media, taking more than 60% of all ad dollars.

Today in the web TV world, Josh Schwartz's (Gossip Girl, The O.C., Chuck) music-themed web series, "Rockville CA" premieres on TheWB.com. The show features both indie favorites and up-and-coming bands such as Eagles of Death Metal, The Broken West, and Bishop Allen. “Rockville CA” is set in a fictional Los Angeles rock club and was shot on location at The Echo, which is an actual, real rock club, that you might have heard of if you have a heartbeat.

Has anyone else noticed how bad the American Idol finalists are at lip syncing? No, we don’t believe they fake the solo numbers (not yet anyway for this polished singing puppy mill) -- but the group numbers are a disaster. Why do those kids have to worry more about the fancy footwork and choreography for the group sing-along than, umm, singing? Last night’s Michael Jackson tribute medley took the cake. The burly guy was off, Jorge looked like he might have been singing in Spanish, and other people just looked like they didn’t know the words. But you know what? The sound quality was good and you didn’t hear anyone out of breath with some of the fancy footwork. No one's posted the video yet, but here's last week's example.

"American Idol" fans can now shell out $1.99 for an iPhone app that will provide them with a weekly update them on the vital statistics of the remaining contenders for the rest of this season. What isn't clear from the press release is if there will be geosynchronous Ryan Seacrest hair gel monitoring.

Critics are being rather forgiving of Jimmy Fallon's (only slightly shaky IMHO) "Late Night" debut: they brought out DeNiro who is always a tough interview and Fallon kind of made it work, and Timberlake kind of saved the first show - not sure why they had Van Morrison on, are they trying to reclaim the age 55-and-up demographic?

Who watched the new "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" last night? How did you like it? It's on our Tivo and we will watch it later but let us know.. We'll update you with the Nielsen numbers later this week - should be interesting.

Jerry Seinfeld will be returning to TV as the producer and creator of "The Marriage Ref", a new series for NBC. No premiere date or time slot has been selected.

It looks like Andy Richter will be returning to the side of Conan O'Brien when he fires up his version of "The Tonight Show" starting on June 1st. Richter will be the announcer for the show and will appear in comedy sketches but it's not clear if he will be a fixture on the guest couch a la Ed McMahon. Now that the Academy Awards are over with and Conan has shut down production, late night TV is a wasteland this week other than Jimmy Kimmel.

Even though the majority of eyes are focused on Sunday's Oscars, this Saturday, the Writers Guild of America will be doling out their awards and a sampling of scuttlebutt with regards to TV leaders include "Mad Men", "30 Rock", "The Office", "The Wire", and "True Blood".

Today AMC launched the beginning of a series of webisodes for its excellent series, "Breaking Bad", in advance of its new season starting on March 8th.

Last week we went to a sneak preview of Demetri Martin's new show on Comedy Central, "Important Things With Demetri Martin", which premiere's tonight at 10:30pm. The show has been in the works since last Spring so we are happy to see it make it on air.

So "American Idol" fans, round three of the Hollywood auditions start tonight - we haven't seen a lot of chatter about this season here at LAist and wondered what your thoughts were. Has the show jumped the shark yet? Because if you're not into the show we'd just as soon not list it here. Your comment is your vote.

Truth is stranger than fiction - or life imitates fiction? Something like that: Anna Torv and Mark Valley, the stars of FOX's "Fringe", have married in real life. Fringe also did pretty good in yesterday's Nielsen numbers, with a 10+% increase in viewership over last week, but that increase is getting attributed to the popularity of its lead in, "American Idol".

There's nothing more piteous than a prominent media personality attempting to be hip and omniscient (except maybe attempting to give a blind dude a high five). And that's exactly what happened a few moments ago when American Idol host and "celebrity wrangler" Ryan Seacrest posted an unsubstantiated, preemptive bill for this year's Coachella via his website and twitter. The post, entitled "Coachella Line-Up Announced!," surfaced around 11 AM this morning, touting Nine Inch Nails, Morrissey, Franz Ferdinand, Katy Perry, The Killers, Neil Young, Adele, Foo Fighters, Public Enemy and Lupe Fiasco as headliners.

Looks like the national executive director of the Screen Actors Guild, Doug Allen, has had to step down because of the strike, or lack thereof, and a deal with producers, or lack thereof.

There was no way to avoid President Barack Obama's inauguration today if you were anywhere on the 'net, radio, or television - well, maybe if you were watching the Game Show Network you might've missed it. Most media organizations jumped into this inauguration with both feet which was encouraging. Hulu and Facebook streams were reportedly failing, along with several others. Twitter seemed to do OK after doubling capacity in preparation for the day.

We're shattered over the death of Emmy-award winner Patrick McGoohan who died yesterday in LA at the age of 80. McGoohan made his first mark on TV in the series "Danger Man" (released in the US as "Secret Agent") and won his two Emmy awards for his work on Peter Falk's "Colombo" which he acted in, produced, directed, and wrote several episodes.

There's only three weeks to go until the Super Bowl and NBC still has to sell some ads so they're looking to the movie studios to fill up the remaining (10%) of slots. So what we're saying is that at least 1 out of 10 ads will be for a movie, with all the ads adding up to over $200 million for NBC.

KGRL -- mentioned previously here -- is a local "...non-profit non-commercial internet radio station that plays the freshest and the best ALL QUALITY female artist / fronted acts in a wide variety of genres." Their "Top 10 Artists To Watch Out For In 2007" included local singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles (MySpace), who in 2008 experienced mainstream recognition due to "Love Song", which garnered Grammy nominations for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Song of The Year.

      

TMZ follows up on the now identified dead woman found outside "American Idol" judge Paula Abdul's Sherman Oaks home: "The woman found dead in front of Paula Abdul's house last night was a featured contestant on 'American Idol.' Paula Goodspeed appeared on Season 5 in 2006. During her audition she said she's an artist and the first pic she ever drew was of Paula Abdul. 'Idol' produced a 3 minute and 40 second featurette on Goodspeed and her passion for Paula. She did not make the cut, after Ryan Seacrest proclaimed, 'And the love affair is over.'"

Last night around 6:00 p.m., LAPD officers found the body of a missing woman in a car next to the home of Paula Abdul's Sherman Oaks home on Beverly Ridge Drive. The woman's identify has not been released, but police say it is definitely not Abdul. TMZ reports that "the parents of the victim believe their daughter was a 'big fan' of Paula's" and that her death may be from a drug overdose. Additionally, the woman, who is in her 30s, "had an unnatural obsession" with Paula Abdul, according to the Ventura County Sheriff's Department who tipped LAPD off to the woman's possible whereabouts. Her license plate read "ABL LV" and a lanyard hanging from the rear mirror had a photo of Abdul on it.