Live Q&As

Just the opposite -- sort of -- insisted ABC programming chief Paul Lee, just yesterday at Winter TV Press Tour 2013... A critic asked if the double pump "shows dedication on the network's part to keeping those shows alive despite not so great ratings and how long do you think that patience will last?"

He responded: "Absolutely it shows that! We love those two shows. They are incredibly distinctive... blah, blah, blah... We didn't have much place to put them because we can't put them at 8...blah, blah...So we really thought this is a really nice way, slightly a cable play if you think about it, to use these slots to raise sampling on those show and get people to see them."

Translation: Not an absolute burnoff, but these shows need to get their ratings up.

After Fox Entertainment chairman Kevin Reilly bought "Mindy Project" he wanted The Reporters Who Cover Television know that he was running programming at NBC when Mindy got her big break, landing on "The Office."  NBC's Thursday comedies don't get "tonnage" but they get good demos, and there is a business there. Ironically, NBC's new owner Comcast, has decided it wants NBC to be in the broadcast business, not the niche business, on Thursday nights as well as Sunday, Monday and Tuesday -- thank you football and The Voice -- and NBC's Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt has said that's the next big priority for the network. Last summer, TV critics got their undies in a bunch when he said the network needed to "broaden out" its Thursday comedy lineup, because critics love the lineup as is. This press tour, he noted they'd hated his use of "broaden out" and asked them -- jokingly, but not really -- if they were okay with him saying the Thursday lineup needed to be "more inclusive" I think was the phrase he used...

At the tour, the guy in charge of TBS said he liked buying "Cougar Town" because it was a pre-sold commodity with a slavish (if small by broadcast standards, though not by cable standards) following. My guess is the network got a good price because ABC Studios, which is still producing it, was motivated to place it somewhere, anywhere, to keep making episodes so the show would be more viable in syndication -- which is the end game these days... Now, "B----in A----23" ...If that's the case, then "Happy Endings" would stand a better chance than "B---- in Apt. 23" since it's been on the air longer. On the other hand, it also depends on what broadcast comedy show best fits  the cable network's profile....

Tops on the list:  Fox is extremely devoted to its serial killer drama "The Following" so that's worth investing time in for sure.

I'd also say NBC is very keen to make "Do No Harm" work and very much so with "1600 Penn."

Less so with ABC's "Red Widow." I think the network is keen on "The Hour" but critics seem to think this conspiracy show has holes in the plot you could drive an 18-wheeler through....

Hope that helps!

Show creator Mitch Hurwitz came to the press tour yesterday, or was it the day before --it's all become a blur of questions and cocktails -- and said this set up " is a very different form that emerged really organically." In other words the "family  grew apart and everybody else kind of grew up and got on other shows and had contracts elsewhere. And the only way we could get everybody together for what we’ll call loosely an anthology or a series was to kind of dedicate each episode to a different character’s point of view and that became a really fun, interesting, engaging, creative challenge, because we started finding out that the stories would intersect."

Translation: cast members have moved on. Current contracts would only allow them to shoot one episode.

If you're NBC and you've got Will Arnett on "Up All Night" which you are going to great lengths to salvage -- now it's going to be a multi-cam sitcom with a laugh track -- you're not wild about him doing 14 episodes of "Arrested Development" for Netflix because, yes, Netflix is a competitor...My guess is Arnett is saying that a guest-starring gig on another outlet''s show is maybe more palatable.

I love every iteration of Doctor Who -- I just like the whole Who-ian thing....

I'm told it's much better by episode four..  Can you wait that long? Meanwhile, the cast and writers killed at the press tour and after it was over a number of critics wondered why the show wasn't as good as the Q&A...Josh Gad was hilarious during the Q&A -- on the other hand, he was sitting in a chair and not chewing scenery....

You don't need medical attention -- you just need to fall in love with something else airing in the timeslot. Like ABC's "The Neighbors" of which I am a fan, though I seem to be in the minority here at the press tour.  Critics tend to sniff when I tell them I like the show -- and some folks  at the network too. I usually stop them cold with my searing comeback line: "It's very British." Amazing how Los Angelinos are impressed when you tell them something is very British...And, if you don't like that, other timeslot offerings are: CW's "Arrow" -- don't miss the workout scenes, Fox's "American Idol" -- oh, BTW, at the press tour Nicki Minaj came across as the mature, professional adult, while Mariah Carey played the role of petulant, disheveled diva...

They're trying to make their reality competition shows sound zippy and apparently have limited vocabularies... Let's help them out: Storage Kerfuffles? Baggage Fracas? Any ideas?

We welcome a conversation about the role of TV in the .....oh, sorry, I've heard that so many times this week from so many TV suits I'm now saying it in my sleep....I thought FX chief John Langraf's observation that we're watching the same TV shows as they are in the UK and the same movies and playing the same video games, but have 90 times the rate of gun homicides...don't quote me I'm citing off the top of my head but anyway, that was his drift....On the other hand, he said he was disturbed by video games in which the goal is simply to kill as many people as possible -- though he hastened to say that "third party" narratives, in which you watch a TV show in which someone else kills as many people as possible (See Fox's new "The Following" etc) don't disturb him...Anyway, it seems inevitable we're going to have the conversation about possible links.. and I would not be surprised at all to see a temporary stepping back -- if only a teensy step --  by the huge media congloms that run the entertainment industry , if only to make nice in Washington...

Your Asian Studies class sounds interesting -- I took an English lit class once in which we were given the option of reading "Moby Dick" or writing our own collective novel; we went with the latter and gave to the world the  madcap adventures of an adorable bouncing ball which, somehow, never got published. But I digress. Sounds like you and Hank, the Washington Post's TV critic are of like mind on the third season.  So you're in good company.

Wow -- sounds like I've really missed something while I've been holed up at this orgy of questions and cocktails known as Winter TV Press Tour 2013. Please, tell me more...which "mainstream TV" show featured full frontal nudity? And how do you define "mainstream"? Broadcast, or broadcast and basic cable, or is all TV "mainstream" these days?

I find it very useful in all things.... kind of like how I found it useful to be  tall and loud when I lived in Tokyo.

Good writers have more than one season mapped out... just sayin'....

NBC aired the pilot at 8:30 and episode 2 at 9:30... I vote for watching to see if it gets better, as promised, around episode 4...Besides, if we don't support one of this season's new NBC comedies, they're gonna keep making episodes of  "Whitney" and nobody wants to see that happen, right?

Thanks! Don't miss "Modern Family" -- we got shown some scenes from an upcoming episode and I'm telling you Ed O'Neill deserves an Emmy, a Peabody and the Novel Peace Prize... I also like "The Neighbors" -- but it's very British... I'm also a fan of "The Middle" on ABC. And you'll want to check out NBC's re-boot of single-cam comedy  "Up All Night" as a multi-cam, laugh-tracked sitcom,  if you're a serious student of TV, to see what is known in the industry as a Hail Mary Pass....

Little of both I'm told. I hear they used to add in the tippity tapping on musical comedy flicks until Fred Astaire -- or something like that. My next career I'll be the Crunchy Gravel Imitator for BBC....

Maybe they're not done with the exodus.. but really, I'd miss KK-O if she left the show. I so adored watching her reading the cue cards like she was taking the eye test at the DMV every week and bellowing into the micrphone: "How Does it FEEL to [Fill in the Blank]?" You have to admit, she was spectacularly, epically bad and there's value in that! And, while we're on the subject, isn't it wonderful how badly Simon Cowell is ageing, after giving grief to all those Idolettes whose looks he didn't like?

"Newsroom." There. I said it. I like it. Very British.

Among the many reasons: HBO shows get to debut whenever and make far fewer episodes -- I think Larry David's HBO show once took a couple years off. Broadcast TV can't survive on that model.. really, it's a wonder broadcast shows are as good as they are, given all the strikes they have against them from the get go.. oh, and it would help if they would spend their considerable summer breaks actually outlining the next season. If I have to listen to another hot-shot TV writer bragging about how they wing it on the show....!

HBO has not said when veep will start its second season.

TV suits don't seem to think they'll get a pass on this, based on the number of questions on that very subject they've been giving well-rehearsed answers to at the press tour...they know it's coming.

I do know that Paul Lee, head of ABC Entertainment, is a fan of the show. So I take him at his word he's trying to grow it a larger audienc with this double pump. On the other hand, he thinks the show needs a double pump, so it's current numbers are not good enough, apparently.

NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt spoke of it as one of the network's successes this season -- that an "Go On," in the comedy category...

I could not agree more. .It's as wrongheaded as ABC's decision to have an all-stars edition of "Dancing with the Stars" which ABC suits now say (at press tour) was a huge mistake because, duh, viewers like to watch celebs who don't know their right foot from their left -- not celebs who won or did very well in previous competitions coming back to dance really really well...

It's very good. He's very good and watch it...

British humor and American humor are often poles apart... I'm out of time -- have to drive to Jimmy Kimmel's studio to kiss the ring -- apparently he's too big to be driven to the press tour, so the critics and reporters have to drive to him for his Q&A session this morning. I think the new timeslot may be going to his head. Thanks,  and I hope you'll join me next time!