Posts tagged A&E
Check Out My Latest Show: Last Chance Driving School
Apr 9th
It’s been a crazy start for me this year with a lot on my production plate – but finally the dust is starting to clear – and I have the pleasure of actually unveiling some of the projects I’ve been working on!
First up – and launching this weekend – is Last Chance Driving School, a new series I recently finished Executive Producing for A&E.
Last Chance Driving School is set at a Queens driving school run by husband and wife Sven and Maria Ruppaner, who actually met when Sven gave Maria driving lessons many years ago! The company is a family run business full of big characters and plenty of drama. Over the course of five episodes we take viewers inside the day to day running of the school – and behind the wheel as we follow a series of learner drivers in the process of taking their lessons – and their tests! Check out the trailer below highlighting three of our drivers – Irena, Johnny and Sabina…
Ratings Roundup: 18th December 2011
Dec 18th
It’s time for the final Ratings Roundup of the year. So who shone – and who stunk – over the last 7 days… let’s find out!
WINNERS
FEAR FACTOR: Okay everyone – let’s put this into perspective shall we!
From all the internet hoopla surrounding the return of Fear Factor this week (yes, that would be you Perez Hilton), you’d have thought that NBC had struck the ratings jackpot with their resurrected reality franchise. Short answer – they didn’t. But Fear Factor did well nonetheless.
On Monday night the Joe Rogan hosted gross out series returned from its 5 year break to pull in 8.52 million viewers and a 3.5 18-49 rating. That’s NBC’s best score in the 9pm timeslot for over a year.
But now some perspective. Fear Factor went up against a repeat of House on Fox and Hart Of Dixie on The CW as well as a painfully low rated ABC game show (see below). Plus while that demo is good, the overall ratings aren’t astounding and are likely to fall in the weeks to come. A premier of 8 million isn’t that impressive when slippage is likely. Still even if Fear Factor settles at the 6-7 million mark – that will still pretty More >
Ratings Roundup: 23rd April 2011
Apr 23rd
Winners and Losers From The Last 7 Days
WINNERS
MOB WIVES: First up this week, some good news for Vh1!
We’ve talked about the network a lot over the last few months – and most of the time it hasn’t been pretty with Vh1’s ratings in free fall for much of last year. But last week there were definite signs of recovery and this week Vh1 can even boast a bona fide hit show.
Yep, on Sunday night, new reality show Mob Wives scored 1.41 million viewers and a 0.8 18-49 share, pretty good ratings for a cable show and especially for Vh1 these days. Personally I’m a little tired of all the Real Housewives knock offs doing the rounds these days but people are watching them so I understand the network logic. Is this the beginning of a turnaround for Vh1 I wonder?
SWAMP PEOPLE: Who would have thought that a network branded History would end up becoming one of the hottest cable channels out there? But week after week the network keeps delivering mouth-watering ratings that are the envy of all its competitors.
You already know about American Pickers and Pawn Stars which often deliver in the 5-6 million viewer range, higher than many network shows More >
Teenage Traumas: Beyond Scared Straight
Jan 13th
Check out the preview for Beyond Scared Straight, launching tonight on A&E at 10pm / 9c. Each week features four or five at-risk teens who must spend a day at a real life prison alongside inmates who are doing some serious jail time for their crimes
Hmm reminds me of ABC’s Brat Camp which aired a few years back.. and also all those tough love interventions that Sally Jesse Raphael used to host on her talk show back in the day.
Can I be honest? I love this kind of stuff… There’s few things more fun to me than watching bratty teenagers get yelled at by tough talking criminals and real life badasses! My reasoning – I think there are far too many kids out there who take their lives for granted and have no idea how lucky they are. And it’s really satisfying to see them getting taken down a peg or two.
Plus this is exactly the kind of stuff A&E does well. I’d much rather watch the likes of Intervention and Hoarders than reality nonsense like The Hasselhoffs or Kirstie Alley’s Big Life – and judging by the ratings, it seems I’m not the only one who thinks the same way.
So count me in tonight… but More >
IS THE ERA OF CELEBRITY REALITY OVER?
Dec 10th
In case you didn’t hear the news yesterday – don’t get too attached to A&E’s new celebrity reality show, The Hasselhoffs, following cheesy C-list celeb David Hasselhoff and his daughters. After just two episodes on the air the cable network has made the decision to yank the rest of the series off the air – leaving 8 episodes unaired.
The Hasselhoffs marks the end of a bad year for the Hoff. He resigned from America’s Got Talent only to find his replacement, Howie Mandel, infinitely more popular (David is now heading to the UK to head up Britain’s Got Talent). He was the first celebrity cut from Dancing With The Stars – a real embarrassment for someone who was billed as a great booking for the show. And he’s now stuck in London doing pantomime in Wimbledon (I used to live ten minutes from the theater – it’s going to be a grim winter for The Hoff!)
But even though I had a feeling The Hasselhoffs wouldn’t do too well I’m still surprised by A&E’s decision as cable networks hardly ever kill shows. The network ordered 10 episodes in total and I suspect they weren’t cheap – so taking an 8-episode hit will More >
SNEAK PEEK: TEACH – TONY DANZA
Aug 26th
Here’s the first look at A&E’s new reality series, Teach, coming October 1st and featuring sitcom star Tony Danza as a teacher at an inner city school in Philadelphia. Turns out,The Taxi and Who’s The Boss star has a degree in History Education so for the show enrolled as a full time teacher of a 10th grade English class with 26 students. All with the cameras constantly running!
The show’s been in the works for a while now and judging by the trailer is obviously in the mode of other serious A&E shows such as Intervention and Hoarders, as opposed to lighter fare such as Kirstie Alley‘s Big Life and Gene Simmon‘s Family Jewels.
And it seems that teaching is going to be a hot topic for the Fall, with new movie ‘Waiting For Superman’ (from the team behind An Inconvenient Truth) coming to movie theaters and NBC unveiling their own inner city school series School Pride (produced by Cheryl Hines) Trailers for both are below…
So will Danza’s show continue A&E’s current hot streak… we’ll find out later this year.
Will you be watching? Or are you starting to tire of ‘socially responsible’ reality series…?
10 WAYS TO MAKE TV BETTER
Jun 13th
Wow, things aren’t going well for Hollywood this summer!
The A Team, Sex and the City 2, Splice, Robin Hood, MacGruber, Prince of Persia – the list of outright flops and underperformers continue to grow. And let’s face it – why should we be surprised that people aren’t spending their money to pay inflated cinema admission prices when there’s a whole world of great TV, at home, and (mostly) for free.
We often talk of a new golden age of TV – but people, we really are living it at the moment! I think most of us would agree that the likes of 24, True Blood, Mad Men, Damages and Modern Family are better than 99% of the sheer dreck released into multiplexes across the US (and the world) each week.
But before we get too complacent let’s not pretend today’s TV is perfect. For every Desperate Housewives there’s yet another Real Housewives spin-off. For each terrific reality series like Vh1’s OCD Project there’s an equally vacuous E! series like the dreadful Pretty Wild. And for every Breaking Bad and Nurse Jackie we must also suffer another NCIS or Law and Order spin off (check out the very clever Law and Order and Science for More >
DANCING AROUND THE STARS
May 6th
Why The Best Celebrities Sometimes Make The Worst Reality
Yesterday in New York, A&E announced their latest line up of shows for the coming year at their annual upfronts. Among the new batch were celebrity docu-series featuring David Hasselhoff, Tony Danza, Dee Snider and Bob Saget.
Now I know the guys over at A&E and they’re a good bunch – so I’m interested to see how these shows turn out. Being a Brit – Tony, Dee and Bob are known to me, but definitely less familiar (Twisted Sister just never took off in the same way overseas), but of course everyone in the world knows Hasselhoff and it will be interesting to see exactly what the show’s crews have been able to catch on camera – and how much David is willing to let down his guard. We’ve all seen that drunken burger video and heard the bizarre stories (cutting himself on a chandelier at a hotel?) – but will ‘TV David’ try and brush over his past – or present himself as an open book – flaws and all?
It seems to me that we’re at an interesting point in the celebrity docu-series world where networks, talent and audiences are involved in a delicate More >
