Clear Channel is going private according to the NYTimes - what does it mean? Well who knows, but as a private company Clear Channel will not have to be as transparent about their investments and strategy and that could mean trouble for media markets that they target resulting in (even) less choice for consumers. Another slow night tonight but late night TV looks good - Jungle Jack Hanna on Letterman will be a blast as......

Looks like the SAG and studios have dropped negotiations without reaching a deal so look for a bunch more DVD reviews from me in the next few weeks because it's time to stock up for the summer. It's still springtime and finally my young-man's fancy is turning to love just in time to check out "The Love Boat" reruns on Joost - I can't get enough soft-focus of B and C list celebrities from 25......

Fans of "Project Runway" might want to know more details about its move/death to the Lifetime Networks as reported by the Wall Street Journal. Some fans might say, "Oh no, 'Runway' is going to totally make it on Lifetime - I'm still going to have viewing parties at my house, etc." Be aware that the producers that created the show, Weinstein Co., are not moving with the show to Lifetime - can one safely assume......

Hope everyone had a great weekend with or without your TVs. Not much industry stuff of note today other than Variety pounding on the drums for the SAG contracts to move towards resolution. The two parties have met 17 times so far and still the June 30th date gets closer. Can you imagine meeting 17 times with someone and not having reached some kind of compromise? 7:30pm The Assassination of Richard Nixon IFC - (2004)......

It looks like Time Warner Inc. will be spinning off Time Warner Cable and announcing that sometime today. No word yet on how that might affect subscribers (like yours truly) of the TV, phone, and web services that the cable entity offers. 9:00pm MI-5 BBCA - This show kicks butt over any similar US show: "CSI", "NUMB3RS", etc. 9:15pm Brief Encounter TCM - (1945) Hey romantics, this tale of unrequited love directed by David Lean......

New York City may be all the way across the country, but if Rupert Murdoch gets his way there you can bet he will cast his gaze upon all other major metropolitan areas: the New York Times reports that Murdoch wants to obtain a permanent FCC waiver to acquire two TV NYC stations in addition to his three newspapers and radio assets. Will this be a last hurrah while the friendly Bush Administration still controls......

If you saw my SNL post yesterday, you know I'm all high on live TV (always have been), and lookie, lo-and-behold, we're going to start getting live ads on TV: the Hollywood Reporter says that Jimmy Kimmel (featured below tonight) will start running at least one live ad per episode starting in May. Garmin ran a live ad on Leno a year ago and the "effectiveness and awareness" levels exceeded standard (dead?) ads enough for......

Spike has a new, totally original show that is essentially 'Cops' for the Drug Enforcement Agency and it has the totally original name 'DEA'. “Television viewers will get the same unprecedented access to the inner workings of the DEA as our camera crews – the raids, the risk and the danger,” said Al Roker, executive producer (Al Roker??!! He's so effing hardcore). “When you watch ‘DEA,’ you will feel like you have gone undercover.” This......

Is Fox TV above the law? The Washington Post reports that Fox is challenging a $91,000 fine levied against them by the FCC for a broadcast of "Married by America" back in 2003 that featured reality show cast members licking whipped cream off of strippers' "digitally obscured" body parts. Since the FCC is controlled by an administration that is full of Fox fans will the network get away with it? It should be noted that......

The 10:00pm slot is hot again tonight but I'm going to have to go with Lewis Black again, that's a great show, maybe Comedy Central has finally figured out what to do with him. In other items, the Nielsen Company, whom I've occasionally reported on/castigated in this column, is inviting LAist to submit some TV Trivia questions for an "Ultimate Pop Culture Trivia Challenge" contest and I'd to invite YOU, our readers, to submit some......

A new development, according to the Wall Street Journal, in the land of Big (advertising) Brother is that Nielsen is teaming up with Charter Communications to get set top box data from 320,000 set top boxes in what city?? Los Angeles! Now while no advertiser would make ad placement decisions based exclusively on the somewhat limited data that would come from set top boxes but this infusion of a large pool of subjects is a......

I dunno what's up but the 10:00pm and late night slots seem to have a lot going on. Lewis Black has a new show with a new format on Comedy Central tonight and he's on Letterman as well, kudos to Lewis! 8:00pm Big Brother: 'Til Death Do You Part CBS - For you Tony. Guess what? A guest is sent home. 10:00pm South Park COMEDYCENTRAL - Season Premiere. 10:00pm Head Case STARZ - Season Finale.......

So here we are on Thursday again and 9:00 p.m. ABC is the only logical choice -- Lost. With some exceptions for viewing options during late-night, like celebrity rehab with Dr. Drew and the Late-Late Show with Craig Ferguson (all other late-night options are reruns), we're left with only one choice. The fact that Lost is the only show during prime time worth watching on Thhursday nights while there are literally hundreds of other channels......

[The Junkie's been sick for a few days but we're back] LAist has some great coverage of the Project Runway finale tonight on BRAVO @ 10:00pm so I'm not even going to touch that. If you can't stand the fashion tension, you can always switch over to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors Meeting broadcast on KLCS and your tension will be released utterly. If you follow the link you can see, there's plenty......

Talk shows this week are all Natalie Portman all the time if you hadn't noticed - the charming pixie is making the rounds for her new flick The Other Boleyn Girl, a period piece that looks like a yawn to me. In terms of tonight's viewing options check out the 10 o'clock slot - way too many choices and all of them are reality TV, what a shame. 7:15pm Doctor Zhivago TCM - If you......

On Monday the NY Times reported that ABC and Cox Communications are collaborating on a video-on-demand service with disabled fast-forward, meaning, yeah, that you can't skip the commercials. This isn't that new an idea as Time Warner Cable has been doing the equivalent with two features called "Start Over" and "Look Back" (after using them IMHO they stink). This is another example of old media protectionist attitudes that think the strategy is to avoid being......

Ah, another glorious, status conscious, conspicuously consuming day. I've spent such a long time typing away on my Macbook Air, and now I'm just about ready to drive home to Beechwood Canyon where I'll spend the evening watching Bravo. Hotcha! But hmmm, now that I think about it, maybe a stop at Pinkberry for some deliciously monotonous icy sludge would add to the perfection of the day. No, wait! I've got it! I'll cap things......

Photo of crowd at Los Angeles debate in January by shredded77 via Flickr Last Friday, Sarah Miller's Open Letter to Barack Obama in the LA Times Opinion section caught my eye. Got me thinking. Had me nodding my head. I'm not the only one, as the comments on her letter are getting heated. As an Obama supporter, she raised some concerns about his seeming inability to be concrete and clear about how he is......

OK so the Oscars a week from Sunday are what we're building up to but as an enthusiastic follower of Dexter on Showtime, I'm intrigued to see how it will translate to its network debut on CBS at 10:00pm this Sunday. At first I was concerned that the end result would be a heavily edited, several minutes shorter, vapid and empty shell of its former glory. Not so according to my Showtime contact. Evidently when......

Idol-heads and Runway-heads have a lot to celebrate tonight and I'll be damned, look at how busy the schedule is in the 10:00-11:00pm time frame. Since I don't think any of the options are fantastic is it better to have a little or a lot of mediocrity to choose from? In other news, yeah the writer's strike is over, and SNL is finally heading back into production with it's first show scheduled for Feb.......

The much hyped Lipstick Jungle makes its debut tonight. The networks are desperate to get a Sex In The City lift but how typical to go after a show format that premiered a decade ago instead of coming up with something new and original. Reviewers who received a preview from NBC have said that Lipstick Jungle is "not as bad as Cashmere Mafia" - a Pyrrhic Victory at best. 7:45pm Lolita TCM - (1962) The......

For those who joined us last night (thank you for coming!), we witnessed many hot and bothered moments with an excellent band we've never hard before -- The Makers (we can't find their website, help). They are in residency at Seven Grand every Tuesday and we highly recommend checking them out. For tonight, first night residencies for this month happen at the Viper Room, Hotel Cafe and the Silverlake Lounge (see our Guide to February......

The Lost premiere is the biggest TV event of this very young year, hands down. In other news, Bloomberg says that Fox has sold it's Super Bowl ad slots in record time to the tune of $225 million - recession? What recession? 8:00pm Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares BBCA - Ramsay heads to Paris to save France. TV Junkie 8:00pm Pick 9:00pm Lost ABC - Season Premiere. TV Junkie Pick O' The Night. 9:00pm Celebrity Apprentice NBC......

Got a bit more of a schedule tonight: the Winter X Games are starting up, and there's a bunch of stuff at 8:00pm. I was sick on Sunday so I'm looking forward to catching the rebroadcast of Breaking Bad on AMC. 6:00pm Winter X Games ESPN - Special. This will be re-broadcast at 10:00pm. I'd be kind of into watching this if it didn't have all this stupid snowmobile crap in it. 8:00pm Ramsay's Kitchen......

The WGA is engaging in talks but that doesn't mean that the Oscars still aren't in danger. For an idea of what the economic impact of a canceled Oscars will be check out the diagram to the right from the 01/28/2008 issue of Business Week. Obviously the entire dollar amount is not exclusive to Los Angeles but a significant portion of it is localized ($26.5 million on limos, security, and gifts??). After reading some comments......

If you care for "Just For Laughs", "According To Jim" and all things Tuesday ABC, they're new. We have a premiere tonight on Bravo, our new source of reality TV. This time they're launching Millionaire Matchmaker featuring Patti Stranger (right) who performs the very public service of hooking up desperate, misunderstood, and underprivileged millionaires with compatible mates - Patti, I hope someday a grateful society brings you the honors you deserve. 8:00pm American Idol FOX......

It may be a holiday, yet Mondays are always a guaranteed good night for music with all the residencies in addition to tonight's appearance of Venice local Harry Perry (pictured right) in WeHo We Barbarians, The Morning Benders, Rio Bravo @ Silverlake Lounge Idyllists, The Movies, Light FM, C.R.A.F.T. Club @ Viper Room Radar Bros., Tigers Can Bite You, Kárin Tatoyan, Holloys @ The Echo The Parson Red Heads, The Shaky Hands, Francisco The Man,......

Suns 106, Lakers 98 - Maybe Mitch Kupchak isn't a cupcake, but an evil genius. After mis-managing the Lakers in recent years, it turns out he was right about Andrew Bynum. He refused to trade the young center, and all of a sudden the kid got GOOD. Unfortunately, he's out with an injury and his backup was worthless against Phoenix (hence the evil part). Kwame Brown had seven turnovers and missed an open dunk. Bravo.......

OK so now Oprah wants her own network and she's going to get it. Remember that she is one of the four founders of the Oxygen Network, you know, that paragon of programming that now includes: The Bad Girls Club, Snapped, and the Oxygen Original movie Husband for Hire. Now she's distancing herself from that loathsome swamp of bad TV because of her new altruistic endeavor, the modestly named OWN (The Oprah Winfrey Network) which......

Hey check it, yours truly was invited to contribute some commentary to this ABCNEWS.com article (I'm on page 2). Thanks for your support! So the Golden Globes got canceled and now maybe the Academy Awards will get canceled and this is conflicting me. On the one hand I will have a whole bunch more free time (hours upon hours) to watch my Tivo'd episodes of Grape Ape but I will have so much less lousy......