The first ad for opponents of Prop 8 was calm and cool--it had this sense of peace about it. But after proponents of eliminating gay marriage launched their first and second ads touting alleged facts, opponents got together and made a second and more direct ad that was launched today. Buzz phrases used are "scare tactics," "that's a lie," and the best, a good one for Republicans--"keep government out of all our lives."......

No Age performing at LA Central Library (more photos here) | Photo by LAist Music Editor Josh Pressman Local band No Age recently taped a performance at CBS' Late Late Night with Craig Ferguson scheduled to be aired on October 27. Although, they made it through the taping, they almost didn't because of an Obama t-shirt. Guitarist Randy Randall explains to Stereogum in an e-mail: After the rehearsals, the people from CBS said I......

...in which the students of West Beverly Hills High (and their parents and teachers) have the most fun participating in an anachronistic recreational activity since "Bowling!" Things must have gotten a little kicky in the writers' room the day the creative brain trust behind last night's shiny new ep of 90210 got together and realized they were going to have to pen an entire show using only new characters. That's right, Kelly Taylor has taken......

Opponents of Prop 8, the November ballot initiatve that seeks to eliminate gay marriage in California, seemed to have gotten comfortable and maybe complacent. After all, earlier polls had Prop 8 failing and every major newspaper in the state, even the conservative ones, have said no to banning gay marriage. Still, the Yes on Prop 8 campaign has raised $10 million more than the No on Prop 8 campaign and two polls, one funded......

Tonight (10pm) marks the fifth annual installment of VH-1's Hip Hop Honors, a program saluting the contributions of the genre's pioneers and players. This year's honorees include: De La Soul, Slick Rick, Naughty by Nature, Too Shot and Los Angeles' own Cypress Hill. For the last 20 years, the Hill has been rocking mics with their Cannabis laced brand of genre twisting music that combined hip-hop with elements or rock and Latin music. Sen......

Did you watch last night's debates? If you did, you were one of the minority. Kevin Roderick at LA Observed reports: "Nielsen says that last night's Biden-Palin debate drew a much larger television audience — 45% of households in the 55 biggest metered metro areas — than the earlier McCain-Obama debate. But the ratings in Los Angeles were dead last at 34%."......

First, are you caught up? The adult son of an aging actress moves home to Beverly Hills from planet Kansas with his wife and two kids and they realize life here is, like, totally different. Bowling goes from uncool to cool, the Peach Pit serves Dr. Pepper by the case, and while drugs are generally bad, sex happens to be generally good. Look, Mom-robot (Lori Laughlin) walks and talks and takes pictures! | Photo by......

Last week No on Prop 8 launched the first TV ad in the November ballot fight and everyone knew the Yes on Prop 8 side would fight back. That day is today when they launched an ad using footage of gay rights San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom in the ad (and also includes Pepperdine University School of Law professor Richard Peterson). Proposition 8, which would eliminate same sex marriage in California if passed, is......

"OMG, I'm totes dreaming, right Silver?" "No, Annie, you're wide awake..." | Photo: Michael Desmond / The CW Pinch me. No seriously, pinch me. I think I'm dreaming. First the good people of the CW give the new 90210 the nod for a full season, then they air an episode that is closer to cohesive storytelling than the previous ones. For reals? Granted, if you looked up "brilliant television" in the dictionary, last night's......

Showtime's promotion for Dexter last year at Hollywood & Highland | Photo by Sonny I. LaVista/LAist First, it was David Duchovny admitting he was a sex addict. Then a tunnel was found going from Mexico to a house in Calexico, CA. And that's when LAist readers became concerned. "1st Californication and now Weeds? Showtime's viral marketing is becoming completely outrageous," one reader remarked. Another chimes in... "hope Showtime draws the line on this 'life......

With 44 days to the November election, the battle for state propositions heat up everyday. Many No on Prop 7 ads have aired in the past couple weeks, but today is the first day for a No on Prop 8 TV advertisement asking voters to not eliminate gay marriage in the state. Yes on Prop 8 has yet to launch an ad, which enables the No campaign to "frame the debate," something that the......

(Left) Shenae Grimes as Annie and Jessica Lowndes as Adrianna and (right) Jessica Walter as Tabitha on 90210 on The CW. Photos: Michael Desmond/The CW Instead of calling this week's 90210 "The Bubble" they should have called it "The Nap" because, frankly, it was a snoozer. Chock full of lots of talk and no action, it left me wondering if the residents of West Beverly Hills got too close to a field of our......

From a SAG Rally earlier this month (more photos here) | Photo by Tom Andrews/LAist It was looking to possibly be a dramatic summer when the Screen Actors Union and movie studios were scrambling to renew their contract with each other before it ended. But the contract expired, no deal was made (but AFTRA's deal was) and here we are months later. "Variety reminds us today that a major! labor! crisis! remains in effect......

A TV commercial, shown above, appearing statewide this week has ignited a debate on whether it is a political ad or not. Political ads must disclose donor names. The makers, Let California Ring, say it's not, but Prop 8 proponents say "it is a campaign ad," according to the LA Times. The ad, which backs gay marriage, never mentions Proposition 8, the current ballot initiative that proposes to eliminate gay marriage in California. Lawyers......

George Furth, a Tony-award winning playwright and the man behind the books for "Company," the 1970 Broadway musical as well as "Merrily We Roll Along," died yesterday in Santa Monica for reasons yet to be announced. Furth worked with Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the music and lyrics for the two musicals, on the short lived murder mystery "Getting Away With Murder" in 1996. He also wrote the play "Twigs." As an actor, Furth worked on......

The Emmy nominations are out today and finally it seems like they're getting on the right track with nominations for AMC's "Mad Men", FX's "Damages", and Showtime's "Dexter". In comedy NBC is duking it out with itself between "30 Rock" and "The Office". If any of those previously-mentioned shows wins this will be a good year for the Emmys. In particular the AMC and FX nominations are groundbreaking for basic cable to receive such critical......

NBC will be getting more than $1 billion in ad revenue from the Olympics this year. They've already sold off 85% of their inventory at a cost of $750,000 per 30-second spot. Looks like the network is looking to break a different kind of record. 8:00pm Big Brother CBS - Wednesday edition premiere 9:00pm Project Runway BRAVO - Season Premiere.......

Looks like big media service companies aren't immune to the temptation of outsourcing their workforce - the most recent case is the media metrics leader, Nielsen Co. After taking millions of dollars in tax breaks for promising jobs at a Florida data center, Nielsen has outsourced the positions to an Indian-based offshore provider - makes one respect the numbers Nielsen spews out even less. 8:00pm Wipeout ABC - This is only listed here because you......

Season four of "the #1 ad-supported cable series of all time", aka TNT's "The Closer" returns to TV tonight. I've always had a problem with this series, whether it was the annoying music, Kyra Sedgwick's overpainted lips and weird accent, or the fact that her character, LAPD Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson, has somehow attained the status of Deputy Police Chief despite being "hopeless at LAPD politics". Still, the series is well-funded, looks decent......

The studios say that the SAG rejected their latest offer but the SAG says that isn't true. Still no word of a strike vote from SAG - if this SAG stuff is of particular interest to you, be sure to check out The Hollywood Reporter's SAG/AFTRA "Strike Zone". The big deal this weekend is HBO's Sunday premiere of "Generation Kill". The show will be dramatic and there will definitely be some "humanizing" of the members......

Tim Roth is set to star in a drama on Foxthat will be broadcast early in 2009 going along the lines of other film stars who are making forays into television (Glenn Close, Holly Hunter, etc.) - the drama, titled "Lie to Me", is based on the work of a real-life scientist who is able to read the human body and voice to determine if someone is being truthful. Fox is so behind this project......

The big news of the day is the official split between AFTRA and SAG when AFTRA approved the proposed contract with the producers and studios - still be determined how this will affect SAG's potential strike and negotiations. Ted Koppel, who has a new series premiering on Discovery tonight (see below), will also be appearing regularly on BBC America. This ain't no Roger Mudd gig on The History Channel, voicing over WWII footage, as Koppel......

NBC is in the news big time this week. First off, NBC's ratings for its Wimbledon Men's Final broadcast was phenomenal - the best in 8 years and the best for a finale without a contending American since '91. Second: its purchase of The Weather Channel for $3.5 billion - this is well below the $5 billion that the owners of The Weather Channel, Landmark Communications, had wanted for the property when it first started......

The Screen Actors Guild announced today that they will "present its response" to the "last best final" contract offer by movie studios and producers, who hope it will be accepted. With that, Nikki Finke opines: "... the Big Media companies are prepared to play hardball. I forsee a repeat of what happened during the lowest ebb of the writers strike: the AMPTP walks away from the talks and issues an ultimatum to SAG to take......

Oops, so there is something more to look forward to this month on TV: the July 17th premiere of "The Gong Show" on Comedy Central. The show will be hosted by Dave Attell and judged by (among many others): Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Brian Posehn, Adam Carolla, Kate Walsh, Andy Dick, Ron White, Dave Navarro, Greg Giraldo, Jim Norton and JB Smoove. 7:00pm Tom Jones TCM - (1963) With Albert Finch as Tom Jones,......

So the producers called SAG's bluff and told them to go do their strike vote - not much new to report on there. What there is to report on is the fact that ABC's "Wipeout" continues to get strong ratings after coming in as TV's most highly watched summer premiere. I guess the majority of the American public were not privy to Spike's "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge" and thus don't have the sense to......

The Screen Actors Guild was handed a final offer yesterday by the producers (AMPTP) which the SAG was going to review in detail today. Reports say that movie production has already halted, does the same go for TV? Reality TV, like the social disease it is, just keeps going on since it functions outside of these contracts. TV Junkie is thrilled to learn that AMC is going to go ahead, probably after this whole SAG......

Now that the contract between the largest actors guild and the movie studios has expired, with talks to resume Wednesday, the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers is using a tactic on their website to show the economic pain the actors will supposedly cause if they authorize a strike. Two flash animation boxes on their homepage give out these statistics based on an Milken Institute study (for the writers strike) and Screen Actors Guild's......

Photo by Peggy Archer via Flickr Day 42 into the negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and no result. The contract expires Tuesday at 12:01 a.m. and the next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday. SAG has been saying along that they have no plans to strike but AMPTP has said in a statement that the "industry is now in a de facto strike, with film......

With nine hours left in their contract, the TV Junkie is really wondering what will happen with the Screen Actors Guild situation. Our guess is that the SAG will blink first since somehow, even just discussing talent receiving additional percentages of DVD sales is simply off the table for producers. Looks like TV is for old folks folks as the LA Biz Observed is highlighting a summary of a report from Broadcasting & Cable noting......