LAWRENCE, Kan. — Two months have passed since my hectic schedule last allowed me an opportunity to vent. I’ve seen a lot of television in these eight weeks, so here’s what I’ve concluded:

The first year back to multi-network coverage of the Triple Crown was disappointing at best. NBC’s telecasts at Churchill Downs and Pimlico Race Course were almost entirely comprised of cuts (rather than dissolves or other effects) that were exceedingly jarring, and director David Michaels seemed to be cutting out of sync with the field. His cutting during The Preakness Stakes, when jockey Edgar Prado was forced to pull up heavy favorite Barbaro, at least provided a silver lining in the cloud over the first two races. ABC/ESPN’s coverage of The Belmont Stakes, however, had no such upside. As The New York Times’ Richard Sandomir pointed out in his June 13th column, “an inferior ESPN production showed how unprepared it was to carry a Triple Crown race.” Indeed, there was nothing positive to be taken from the broadcast except for the hope that it can’t possibly get any worse next year.

Filed under:
Late Night TV, Music/Variety, Opinion/Editorial, Sports TV by Scott A. Winer

LAWRENCE, Kan. – Late Show with David Letterman: Led by the premiere host in late-night television, the Late Show did a superb job last Wednesday when actor Russell Crowe appeared on the show after his arrest last week for throwing a telephone at a New York hotel worker. If Johnny Carson is the eternal King of Late Night, then David Letterman is its Crowned Prince. Letterman is by far the best interviewer of all late-night talk show hosts, and his star shone bright when he appropriately conducted a compassionate, serious interview, infused with a perfect amount of humor. Regardless of ratings, Late Show with David Letterman is qualitatively far superior to any of its competition. Even technical-director-turned-director Jerry Foley, who is often lacking in his ability to direct a music performance, rose to the occasion with a commendable job on Paul Anka’s jazzed up rendition of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

Filed under:
Late Night TV, Music/Variety, Opinion/Editorial, Sports TV, Television by Scott A. Winer

ROSWELL, Ga. – In the last six weeks NBC has been scrambling to fix a leak in one of it’s most successful programs: the Today show. NBC News’ three-hour morning show has led its original two-hour time slot (7:00 – 9:00 a.m.) for the better part of a decade, but the show, which expanded to three hours soon after the turn of the century, has recently seen a decline in its margin of victory. For the first time in a long time, “America’s First Family” has been struggling to stay on top.

Word first spread in a late-April edition of the New York Times, announcing the firing of the show’s executive producer Tom Touchet and the “hiring” of Jim Bell, a thirtysomething Harvard alum who was the Coordinating Producer for NBC Sports’ coverage of the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens. The announcement was made by Jeff Zucker, another youthful success story out of Harvard who currently heads NBC Universal Television and who was Today’s executive producer when it first took the lead in the morning ratings game.

Filed under:
Opinion/Editorial, Television by Scott A. Winer

ROSWELL, Ga. – SNL wrapped up its 30th season with an unfortunate performance by both the on and off-air crew. The writing continued to lag, as writing supervisor Paula Pell ended her time at the show. One careless tech mistake in a UPN parody and questionable staging for Coldplay ended the show’s third decade in disappointing fashion. Despite NBC’s stellar coverage of the triumphant display by Afleet Alex in the 130th running of The Preakness Stakes, led by producer David Michaels and director John Gonzalez, at Maryland’s Pimlico Race Course, the SNL finale fell short of an otherwise superb day for the network. Whether producer Steve Higgins is where the change must be made is for the show’s creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels to decide. Since the departure of Tim Herlihy in the late-1990s, Higgins has been at the helm with director Beth McCarthy Miller. McCarthy Miller, who dodged the bullet of being the director behind the disastrous Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show, has remained in good standing at SNL although she was passed over by alma mater MTV for the 2004 Video Music Awards. She deserves to remain in her position on the show, but better musical guests need to be booked throughout the season in order to ensure that she has good material to work with. Furthermore, tech errors must be addressed before the show converts to high definition in coming years.

Filed under:
Late Night TV, Music/Variety, Opinion/Editorial, Sports TV, Television by Scott A. Winer

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Think Outside the Box: For some reason, networks have begun to show a growing number of replays with various split-screen effects. Here’s a thought: STOP! It began with Fox’s baseball coverage in the last few years and can now be seen on some of ABC’s college football telecasts.While some viewers may be able to follow two replays going simultaneously at opposite ends of the screen, no network seems to be able to integrate that with a background that doesn’t look absolutely hideous. Fox used its mind-numbing cookie-cutter shapes rather than simple polygons, and ABC’s background looked so pixelated that it was practically unbearable to watch. Whatever happened to the good ‘ole days when it was sufficient to show the isolated shot of the quarterback throwing and the subsequent pressure from the opposition’s defensive line and then seeing the receivers in isolation from a separate angle. I don’t remember anyone complaining that they couldn’t see both at the exact same time.

Filed under:
Music/Variety, Opinion/Editorial, Sports TV, Television by Scott A. Winer