Monday, July 16, 2012

NEWS ROUNDUP: Patrick Muldoon Says New Writers "Fire Everybody"; EASTENDERS Suspends Late Actress Four Weeks; TV Star Pay Per Viewer!

DAYS OF OUR LIVES' Patrick Muldoon: 'When new writers come in, they fire everybody'
"When new writers come in, they fire everybody and bring in new actors," he tells Zap2it. "As soon as they let go of all of the actors, there are already rumors of us going back."

"The writers write toward your strength," Muldoon says. "Austin, the first time I played him, was a musician and a boxer. That was the character. Then I left the show and was gone for 15 years and went back after 15 years. This time they brought the character back as an accountant."

Unlike the tragic end so many soap characters meet, Austin is not dying, so Muldoon says there's the possibility of yet another return. In the meantime, he's pretty busy with his band and films.

L.A. Times: What is the real value of TV stars and personalities?
The paper gathered data on the salaries of these celebrities, based on interviews with talent agency representatives, managers and network officials as well as on published reports.

Next they divided the annual salary by the total viewers drawn by the star's show. The quotient reveals what each personality makes per viewer, which provides a rough (sometimes very rough) measure of whether that person is overpaid.

Initial conclusion? Compensation in TV is just as byzantine, unfathomable and illogical as it is in every other field of endeavor and there are considerable disparities in pay. Experts are not surprised.

INTERACTIVE: TV star earnings per viewer
"Chelsea Handler may not have a lot of viewers, but she gets paid a lot of dough for the ones she does have on CHELSEA LATELY. Jon Stewart is likewise laughing all the way to the bank. And it's time for CNN's Anderson Cooper to come out... as possibly overpaid."

Too Much TV Linked with Thicker, Weaker Kids
The researchers looked at 1,314 kids who were participating in the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development. The parents of the kids reported the number of hours they spent watching TV each week: at the start of the study, when the the kids were 2.5 years old, they were watching about 8.8 hours of TV per week on average. Over the next two years, TV time increased by six hours to 14.8 hours weekly on average. By age 4.5, about 15% of the kids in the study were watching more than 18 hours of television each week.

The more time kids spent in front of the TV, the larger their waistlines, the researchers found: each additional hour of weekly TV logged between age 2.5 and 4.5 was linked with an increase of waist size of slightly less than half a millimeter by the time the kids were in grade school. So, a child who watches 18 hours of television at 4.5 years old will have gained an extra 7.6 millimeters (0.3 in.) around his middle by age 10.

Comic-Con 2012: Joss Whedon Starring in Jane Espenson Web Series HUSBANDS
"HUSBANDS is full of the kind of whip-smart remarks you wish you'd written yourself," Whedon said earlier this month when the show was renewed. The series will premiere its second season on August 15.

Salon: The most awful episode yet of HBO's Aaron Sorkin's THE NEWSROOM was also the most fun to watch
"n its first three episodes, it has been idling around mediocrity, occasionally pulling out a cute, zippy or cutting sequence but more often delivering a smug, condescending or self-righteous one. Last night’s installment was a serious escalation of all that has come before, ramping up things to a new fantastically horrible — or maybe horribly fantastic — level."

Grant Show is engaged!
The hunky former RYAN'S HOPE actor, 50, is engaged to actress Katherine LaNasa, her spokesperson confirms to PEOPLE.

EASTENDERS actress Shona McGarty suspended from the show for four weeks
The 20-year-old, who plays troubled teen Whitney Dean on the Walford soap, has reportedly been punished for repeatedly failing to show up for work on time.

An EASTENDERS spokesperson confirmed to Digital Spy: "Shona has been suspended for repeatedly being late."

The Daily Star reports that Shona was "read the riot act" by EASTENDERS executive producer Lorraine Newman.

Kristen Alderson on GENERAL HOSPITAL
"I think Frank and Ron (Valentini and Carlivati, OLTL's former Executive Producer and Head Writer) are doing a beautiful job with making the show – not changing the show too much, but adding to it."

PhotoMedex rises on hair removal celebrity endorsement
Shares in PhotoMedex Inc. (Nasdaq: PHMD; TASE: PHMD) rose strongly, after the company announced that its no!no! Hair broke another beauty sales record: on the 4th of July, beauty expert Jennifer Crawford and ONE LIFE TO LIVE star Kassie DePaiva featured the product at a beauty event. The company sold 41,000 units at $249.95 each, a large discount on the retail price, during the 24-hour event, selling out the supply.

Amanda Setton joins FOX's THE MINDY PROJECT as a series regular
Setton will play Shauna Dicanio, a tough-talking Jersey girl who works at the same medical practice as Kaling's character, Mindy. The series premieres September 25.

Kimberly McCullough Will Make GENERAL HOSPITAL Appearance
McCullough, who was last seen on GH in March when it was revealed that Robin didn't perish in the hospital lab explosion, after all, returns to the show this week and reunites with Jason Thompson's Patrick. "It was great to work with Kimberly again," says the actor.

Showtime & HUNG Co-Creators Developing Supernatural Series
Called SLEEP NO MORE, the Fox 21-produced supernatural thriller tells the tale of a town where the dead keep returning to life.

3 comments:

  1. Muldon's comment is interesting but 15 years in the life of a soap character is a long time. And with all the writing changes at DOOL Patrick is not even close to the same today as the original.

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  2. I just started watching DOOL more recently, so the only Austin I know is the current one, and I FF through most of his scenes because he's so stupid and boring. Nothing against the actor...he's just playing what's written...but as far as the character goes, he can go!

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  3. Re: Patrick Muldoon. Why rag on the writers for the show? Why make it sound like you knew you would be fired? If it's that bad why ever come back? Muldoon needs a lesson in public relations.

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