News Round-up

Soap January: Bombs Away!
Marlena De Lacroix blogs:
"What is going on in this soap January? I have a feeling the approaching end of the genre may have to do with the frantic state of all the soap activity on and off screen this month. Every soap wants to save itself. Every soap is desperately doing whatever it can to hold on to viewers. Hence, many soaps may be acting more out of panic and fright than thinking calmly and rationally."

Senate approves another bill to delay Digital TV conversion
Will this one pass the House? The bill is essentially the same that previously passed the Senate, but with a few minor modifications from the House.

INTERVIEW: FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS' Taylor Kitsch (Tim)
"We'll do 18 pages a day sometimes, and that's just unheard of in television and film. They pick up these idiosyncrasies—we have all this freedom. If we're doing a scene and, say, I want to do something with the bottle I'm holding, [the camera crew] will start with my hand on the bottle to give a segue to go into the scene. All those little moments shape these characters and make it so genuine and relatable."

FNL's Connie Britton blogging for Entertainment Weekly
Her recap of tonight's episode will be up at 1am ET. A tease: "Next up is a scene with me and Kyle my-TV-husband Chandler. Any scene that starts with, 'I don't give two farts about the booster's anxiety' is okay by me. And we had a good time shooting this scene, because Kyle thought he was soooo funny putting one over on me (Tami) about the booster BBQ by saying, 'I promise that maybe we'll have it somewhere else' when I ask if we can not have it at our house next year. He thought his 'maybe' promise, followed by a big smooch was hilarious."

Brooke Shields: LIPSTICK JUNGLE thief stole from me, too
LIPSTICK JUNGLE's” stage manager didn’t just rob the show’s fashion closet — Brooke Shields says he stole from her, too!

“[Arthur Moreira] is the same guy who stole my wallet out of my dressing room last season, right out of my purse!” Shields tells us. Last week, reports surfaced that Moreira took more than $30K worth of designer duds.

Says Shields: “He’s not very bright, because the purse was worth more than the wallet.”

7 ways UGLY BETTY could save itself
Included on the list is "Bring back the soapy tone."

ABC Says Web Viewers Will Tolerate Twice the Ads
The web is about to get a little more like TV -- minus the ad-skipping. ABC.com has started to peddle research that shows online viewers will tolerate shows such as GREY'S ANATOMY with ads from multiple sponsors, much like TV.

ABC.com has been making noise for some time about boosting ad loads to bring the amount of revenue earned from viewers more in line with TV, and started conducting research early in 2008.

The ABC/Nielsen research concluded that adding multiple sponsors per ad break had "a minimal effect" on recall and did not affect purchase consideration or ad attentiveness. ABC said the data show that doubling the number of ads within a show from four to eight "did not affect the viewers' overall experience with the ABC.com player."

SARA A. BIBEL: Baby Blues
"The baby switch storyline has become a soap staple that’s almost as common as amnesia and adultery. ONE LIFE TO LIVE is using a baby switch to generate numerous storylines that impact most of the characters on the canvas. In contrast, on DAYS OF OUR LIVES, Nicole’s decision to switch the baby she planned to pass off as her own with Sami’s made little sense."

Brownridge Out as OK! General Manager
“This is off the chart,” a source who wished to remain anonymous told FOLIO:. “One could surmise that Brownridge distracted and derailed that team. Some of the credibility that book had built may have been lost.”

Ad pages were up 23 percent in 2008 compared to 2007, according to Publishers Information Bureau figures. Through the first nine months, ad pages were up 34.4 percent. Last month, OK! cut its cover price 50 cents from $3.49 to $2.99.

Recession rocks Hollywood's showbiz papers
or more than 75 years, Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter have battled to be the movie industry's top newspaper, but recent layoffs due to the recession and competition from Internet blogs has Hollywood wondering if it will soon become a one paper town.

Daytime Nielsen Ratings for last week
Total Viewers (versus previous week/versus last year)
1. Y&R 5,217,000 (-206,000/-548,000)
2. B&B 3,581,000 (-154,000/-535,000)
3. DAYS 2,989,000 (+7,000/+80,000)
4. GH 2,771,000 (-96,000/-567,000)
5. ATWT 2,688,000 (-2,000/-521,000)
6. AMC 2,606,000 (-29,000/-193,000)
7. OLTL 2,478,000 (-125,000/-279,000)
8. GL 2,052,000 (-127,000/-630,000)