Tag Archives: television

Legendary producer and concert promoter Don Kirshner has died at the age of 76. I spent many, many Saturday nights glued to Kirshner’s Rock Concert series back in the 70s. The New York Times has posted a preliminary obit. Don Kirshner, who guided the course of Brill Building and bubblegum pop in the 1950s and ’60s as a music publisher …

Just in from Logo. Pop the champagne, touch up your spray tan and pick a cute outfit, Logo’s much talked-about docu-reality series “The A-List: New York” is returning for a second season beginning in the fall, 2011. Season one of “The A-List: New York” quickly became one of the most talked-about series of 2010. It currently ranks as the second …

Eternal television host Regis Philbin, 79, announced his retirement this morning after 28 years with The Morning Show. “This will be my last year on this show … but there is a time, there is a time that everything needs to come to an end for certain people on camera, especially certain old people,” Philbin said. The show, now in …

There will be no season two for Sarah Palin’s Alaska. According to Entertainment Weekly, ratings are not necessarily the reason. Instead, it may be that the network would be forced to offer equal time to other 2012 presidential candidates should Palin follow through on her threat to run. Which seems all the more likely with this decision.

Beyond silly.

JMG reader Mark S. King live-vlogs today’s Golden Globes nominations. The full list of nominations is here. Glee’s Chris Colfer got a nomination!

Towleroad notes that Anderson Cooper’s coming talk show will go by his first name only. The show, which launches in September, will run on Fox stations in several major markets including Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago. In many markets it will take Oprah’s time slot.

Oprah Winfrey is sick and tired of all those lesbian rumors about her and gal pal Gayle King. And she’s let Barbara Walters know that in no uncertain terms: “I’m not a lesbian. I’m not even kind of a lesbian. And the reason why it irritates me is because it means that somebody must think I’m lying. That’s number one. …

Stay out of the comments if you haven’t seen last night’s episode. Otherwise dive in and dish.

Speaking to the Advocate’s Julie Bolcer, former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw said that networks should continue to give airtime to vicious anti-gay hate groups because that may spark outrage and create a national discussion. “I don’t think you can shut down free speech,” he said. “We’re a free speech society. They’re entitled to their positions however wrong they may be. …

The producers of Dancing With The Stars have decided that “America isn’t quite ready” to see a same-sex couple compete on the show. The decision comes after Portia de Rossi declined an invitation to be the show’s first contestant to dance in a same-sex pair. “If Portia had agreed then this would have been a done deal,” an ABC insider …

“You say you ‘don’t agree with the family’s politics at all’ but I say, if you understood that commonsense conservative values support the right of individuals like you, like all of us, to live our lives with less government interference and more independence, you would embrace us faster than k.d. lang at an Indigo Girls concert.” – Bristol Palin, in …

Glee is changing America. There’s no way it can’t be.

This is a pretty good example of why Craig Ferguson is my favorite late-night television host.

Stay out of the comments if you haven’t yet seen tonight’s episode. Otherwise, dive in and dish the strangeness. (The above clip may vanish from YouTube, of course.)

Actor Leslie Nielsen of Airplane! and Naked Gun fame died this afternoon in Fort Lauderdale. His death was first reported in unconfirmed messages on Twitter late Sunday that suggested the actor had died in the hospital after suffering from pneumonia. His nephew Doug Nielson, told CJOB that Leslie had been in the hospital in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for 12 days …