News Round-up

Where are TV's Obama-like characters?
As Obama prepares to move into the White House in January, he and his family will be hard pressed to find blacks like themselves represented on any of the major networks -- ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox.

In fact, not only will they have great difficulty locating any black family in a leading role on the networks, they also will see it's nearly impossible to find a scripted comedy or drama that features a young person of color in a central role.

Budig leaving NY for Hollywood
Fort Mitchell native Rebecca Budig leaves ABC's ALL MY CHILDREN studio in New York early next year and returns to Hollywood to pursue TV and movie roles.

Budig, 35, had left the soap in 2007 and moved to Los Angeles. But she resumed the role of Greenlee Smyth du Pres Lavery in January.

"I will be on into spring with a great story line, I am told," says the 1991 School for Creative & Performing Arts graduate. "I will go back out to L.A. and definitely be looking for work again. It never ends as an actor."

Forget GOSSIP GIRL and bed-hopping. The American public, as it showed by electing Obama, is ready again for TV shows that reflect real life
Although there are exceptions, most notably BROTHERS & SISTERS and FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, families are, for the most part, confined to sitcoms where the kids are contractually obligated to be smarter than the adults and anyone older than 60 is eccentric in some way.

Dramas, meanwhile, are populated by people who have nothing better, or else, to do than perpetually work or hang out with people from work. Beyond their profession and their romantic lives they have no other responsibilities. Or, apparently, interests. Religion and spirituality are usually verboten unless a character is communicating with dead people, as is any sort of creative outlet (no one sings in a choir or writes short stories that never get published), and politics are rarely discussed, much less made part of characterization or narrative.

Medical shows and legal dramas occasionally address pressing social issues (though health-care costs and prohibitive legal are rarely among them), but the only public servants we see on TV are cops and firefighters. No teachers, no caregivers, no social workers, no politicians except, of course, the ones who are corrupt.

HOLLYOAKS' Roxanne McKee Is Maxim’s Hottest TV Star
Roxanne McKee is a star on the UK’s HOLLYOAKS, where she just filmed her final scenes. She cant reveal whether her character Louise dies or not but she did say this:

"Louise will be a bride out for revenge. I’m really happy with the way she leaves and fans will be shocked by what she gets up to before they see her for the last time."

Roxanne herself was just named Maxim’s hottest television star.

SAG stance sends pilots to AFTRA
The strike saber-rattling by the Screen Actors Guild is sending the studios into the arms of its rival, AFTRA, for pilot season.

The prospect of SAG going on strike by mid-January, just as primetime's pilot season starts in earnest, is ensuring that more broadcast network pilots will be produced under AFTRA contracts than under SAG pacts next year, top studio brass confirm.