Monday, September 8, 2008

News Brief

INTERVIEW: Emmy Winner and new OLTL star A Martinez
"I signed a five-week deal and I just finished my last tape day. I think the stories and the scenes will play out over 8 weeks."

VIDEO BLOG: NIGHT SHIFT's Tristan Rogers
Rogers (Robert Scorpio) has a number of interesting vlogs on his official website.

CBS affiliate in San Diego chooses GUIDING LIGHT over U.S. Open
Now here's a switch. Normally the networks jump at the chance to pre-empt soaps for anything, including non-"breaking" news. Today, CBS aired the rain-delayed U.S. Open men's tennis final at 2pm PT. On the west coast, that meant GUIDING LIGHT would have to be pre-empted (it was being showing overnight in many cities). But KFMB in San Diego chose to not show the tennis match and instead aired their regular programming including GL (tennis was available on their website instead).

The San Diego Union-Tribune received hundreds of phone calls protesting the decision. It's not known how many calls KFMB received.

George Lazenby enlists long-lost daughter in custody fight

Speaking of tennis, former James Bond actor George Lazenby is hoping evidence from a long-lost daughter will help him in his bitter divorce and child custody battle with estranged wife Pam Shriver by depicting him as a "loving, caring parent".

The 69-year-old Australian-born star is battling a host of allegations including claims by former tennis star Shriver that he was an abusive alcoholic with "severe anger management issues" who once gave their three young children alcohol and threatened to kill her.

Soap fans remember Lazenby for his run on the Lorimar syndicated mid 1980s soap, RITUALS.

24 Gets Worse, Takes Page from GL
Does anyone else get annoying reading (many times a day) news articles that throw in a soap reference meant to be an insult? Here's the latest from the New York Observer:

"The WGA Strike caused 24 to be pushed all the way to 2009, and then the producers, in their infinite wisdom, decided to take a page out of the GUIDING LIGHT handbook and bring a major character back from the dead (Carlos Bernard's beloved Tony Almeida.) When we read that Jack's annoying daughter Kim (Elisha Cuthbert) would be back in the fold, we rolled our eyes in disgust. This wasn't shaping up well."

I guess this one isn't so bad, but whenever a prime show show goes off the rails or does something over the top, critics starting bringing out the soap comparisons. And that's not to mention how everything in the news is a "soap opera" these days - Brett Favre, Sarah Palin, etc.

Former GL and DAYS producer now artistic director
Roy Steinberg is the new artistic director of Cape May Stage. He has bbeen working the last few years as a freelance director and producer, is best known as a supervising producer of GUIDING LIGHT and DAYS OF OUR LIVES. His work on the shows resulted in four Daytime Emmy nominations for best dramatic series. Around the country, Steinberg has directed over 60 theatrical productions. He has an MFA from Yale School of Drama, and has been teaching acting at UCLA for the last five years.

Y&R's Daniel Goddard in Albuquerque
Goddard was in Albuquerque both to scout locations for an unnamed indie film he's working on and to visit family. His wife is the niece of Gail and Nick Smerigan, the folks who brought Albuquerque Studios to town.

"I love it down here. Every time I come down here to see Gayle and Nick, I love it," he said. "Here, you see the clouds, they have a 3-D thing to them. In L.A., you get a smog and it just lingers."

CBS bringing some shows to Facebook, other social networks
CBS announced it is putting its TV shows on Facebook, MySpace, and Google’s personalized homepage, iGoogle, through apps developed by San Francisco startup, iWidgets. It's a no-brainer, really: social networkers identify as fans of TV shows, and represent a built-in distribution mechanism and wide audience. Y&R will be one of the shows included.

Kristi Leskinen, freestyle skier and soap opera fanatic?
Freestyle skier, California resident and pinup girl Kristi Leskinen is now appearing on television sets nationwide, however she’s not wearing any skis. As a matter of fact, there isn’t a flake of snow in the commercial! Apparently, the folks at GENERAL HOSPITAL got a whiff that she was a bigtime fan of the show and placed her in ads plugging the 45th season of the show.

OWN hires Nicole Nichols
Nicole Nichols, senior vp entertainment communications at the Disney-ABC Television Group, has been tapped to head up PR efforts at OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, the joint venture between Discovery Communications and Winfrey's Harpo Prods.

Nichols most recently was responsible for strategic communications efforts for five business units in the Disney-ABC Television Group, including ABC Entertainment, ABC Daytime, ABC Studios, ABC Family and SoapNet.

Win a phone call from January Lavoy (Noelle, OLTL)
To enter into the drawing you must send in a letter or note to the OLTL studio that includes an idea to bring Noelle to Llanview. Any mail posted between September 8th and September 30th that includes the following will be entered.

PATRICK ERWIN: Setting the mood (Part 1 of 2)
Erwins is "thinking about how themes set the mood for the shows on the air."

TOM CASIELLO: Two blogs in one day
Being named the top two blog entries of the week in Nelson Branco's latest "Nelson Ratings" must have inpired Casiello to write more today. Or maybe ONE LIFE TO LIVE just helped the wheels start turning.

In Therapists and the rapists he writes: "I'm not sure why rapists became such complex character studies on soap operas - but at some point, it became common practice in daytime to delve into the psyche of these men who commit this atrocious crime."

He later follows it up with Continuity Police Reporting for Duty (One Life to Live - Part 2), where he writes about how Fridays ending didn't match today's pick-up: "Call it a continuity error, or a miscommunication between directors, or just a small snafu that unfortunately changes everything."

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