Alan Alda tips hat - albeit reluctantly - to Saints for breaking `MASH' ratings record

Alan Alda isn't too angry about the New Orleans Saints' Super Bowl victory over the Indianapolis Colts getting a bigger audience than the series finale of his hit CBS sitcom "MASH," but his statement about it doesn't seem like he's jumping for joy either.

"If they broke our record, I'm happy for New Orleans and I hope it gives even more to cheer about to a city I love," Alda said. CBS's coverage of the Super Bowl averaged 106.5 million viewers, just beating the 106 million that the 1983 series finale to "MASH" averaged. In those days, there were only three networks and 83.3 million homes. Now there are hundreds of channels, the Internet and 115 million television homes.

Alda, who played Hawkeye Pierce during the show's 11-year run, wonders how accurate the numbers really are. "I know it sounds evil to mention, but how does Nielsen know how many actual people were watching either broadcast?" he asked. We often wonder the same thing.

Wayne Rogers, who played Trapper John for three seasons on "MASH," said while the Super Bowl numbers were big, "MASH" is a better financial bet.

"That Super Bowl is never going to earn what "MASH" earned that's for sure, because there's no reruns for that Super Bowl," Rogers told Fox Business Network.

-- Joe Flint

Photo: "MASH." Credit: Fox.

Saints' Super Bowl win nips 'MASH' finale for most-watched show ever

Move over Hawkeye Pierce, looks like Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints just took your ratings crown along with the Super Bowl title.

A record 106.5 million people watched the Saints write a storybook ending to their dream season by beating the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 in Super Bowl XLIV on CBS, according to Nielsen.

That's not only the biggest audience to date for the Super Bowl, but the biggest audience for a televised event in the U.S. ever -- barely knocking off the finale of CBS' "MASH," which averaged almost 106 million viewers when it ran in 1983.

Of course, the television landscape has changed dramatically here over the last 30 years. When the "MASH" finale ran in 1983, there were 83.3 million television homes; now there are almost 115 million television homes. One can spin that beating the record set by "MASH" was inevitable.

Though there may be more eyeballs available now than there were 27 years ago, there are also a lot more options for viewers, making the Super Bowl number more impressive. "MASH" played in the glory days of three broadcast networks. Now, people also have hundreds of cable channels and the Internet as entertainment options.

There was some concern that power outages caused by heavy snow in the mid-Atlantic region may have hampered viewing. Instead, it looks like the cold and snow helped, keeping people inside and in front of their televisions on Sunday night. It was a similar story in 1982 when a snowstorm and Arctic blast hit that region and CBS' coverage of the game between the San Francisco 49ers and Cincinnati Bengals scored a then-record 85.2 million viewers. 

When it comes to big-event programming, it is becoming clear that the Internet is more friend than foe to television ratings. The growth of social media creates a national water cooler for viewers to share thoughts and trade quips about what they're watching. Someone watching the game alone can now feel like they are watching it at a party without having to worry about cleaning up dishes later. Twitter was overloaded a few times during the game, with people tweeting about advertisements -- particularly the spot featuring David Letterman, Jay Leno and Oprah Winfrey -- as well as about the game and The Who's halftime performance.

The big number provided a strong lead-in for CBS' new reality show "Undercover Boss," which premiered after the game and drew 38.6 million viewers. That is also a record for a new show's premiere after the Super Bowl. CBS took a gamble by launching a brand new show after the Super Bowl. The network ran a very tight post-game show so that "Undercover Boss" started at 10:13 p.m. EST. Sometimes the game and post-game show run so long that it's not unusual for the entertainment programming scheduled after the game to start after 10:30 p.m. in the East, which usually means lower ratings as fatigued viewers drift away.

In recent years, networks have tended to use the post-Super Bowl time slot for a special episode of an established show, as was the case last year with NBC and "The Office." The last time a network premiered a new show was in 1999, when Fox ran "Family Guy" after the match between the Denver Broncos and Atlanta Falcons.

For history buffs, last year's down-to-the-wire Super Bowl match between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals on NBC averaged 98.7 million viewers. This is the fifth year in a row that the Super Bowl has averaged more than 90 million viewers, making it the new norm for success. Prior to the February 2006 match between Pittsburgh and Seattle, the previous seven Super Bowls had fewer than 90 million viewers.

Ad rates for Sunday's match were between the range of $2.5 million and $2.7 million although some advertisers may have paid as much as $3 million to get into the game. Look for News Corp.'s Fox, which has the game next year, to use this year's huge ratings to try to push the cost per 30-second spot well over the $3-million mark.

If it seemed like you had more time to run to the kitchen or bathroom during the game, that's because you did. According to industry consulting firm Kantar Media, the telecast had 47 minutes and 50 seconds of commercials, a new record. If only a few had been as clever as the spot with Letterman, Leno and Winfrey.

-- Joe Flint

Photo: New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees enjoys the moment after the Saints' victory. Credit: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images

The Morning Fix: Dave, Jay and Oprah steal advertisers' thunder! Kadafi on Line 2. History at Lifetime. 'The View' goes wonky

After the coffee. Before finding out if Abe Vigoda is available for pilot season.

Maybe they can all get along. Never mind Tim Tebow and his mom or those Bud Light ads, the hottest commercial in the Super Bowl was CBS' own promotion for David Letterman that featured Oprah Winfrey and archrival Jay Leno. The ad, shot last week at Letterman's New York theater, will probably end up doing more to boost Leno, whose image has taken a beating since NBC decided to bring him back to late night and say goodbye to Conan O'Brien, than Letterman. That Letterman would do an ad with Leno seems to soften all the harsh criticism that the CBS host threw Leno's way over the last several weeks. More on how the spot was made from the Los Angeles Times and an overview of all the spots from the New York Times' Stuart Elliot. 

'Dear John' sends 'Avatar' a letter. We saw this coming. A weekend with guys obsessing over the Super Bowl, light attendance and a tearjerker movie premiere  spelled the end of James Cameron's "Avatar" at the top of the box office. "Dear John" took in $32.4 million, cruising to the top spot, while "Avatar" made $23.6 million. John Travolta's "From Paris With Love" made $8.1 million. More box office analysis from the Los Angeles Times and Hollywood Reporter.

Kadafi on Line 2 for you, sir. Saadi Kadafi, son of Libya's Moammar Kadafi, wants to be a player. According to the Financial Times, he has financed his first film, starring Adrien Brody and Forest Whitaker. The name of the movie is "The Experiment," and the name of the company he's backing is called Natural Selection. Sometimes, when one's mind is racing with witty cracks, it's best just to play it straight.

Drama of a Lifetime. Andrea Wong exited her position as CEO of Lifetime Networks on Friday. The move came as little surprise as Wong's role had been greatly reduced in the wake of the channel's merger into Arts & Entertainment. Ratings have been off, and the deal to swipe "Project Runway" from Bravo did not pay off financially. Although Wong has worked closely with Disney's Bob Iger and Anne Sweeney (Disney owns a chunk of Lifetime), no lifeline appears to be coming for Wong. Her likely replacement is Nancy Dubuc, currently president of the History Channel. More on Lifetime from Variety and the Wrap. If you want to know more about Dubuc, here's a profile on her and what she's done at History from our own Matea Gold from just a few weeks ago.

Lions Gate eying Miramax? Although it is often mentioned as a bidder for MGM, Lions Gate is also kicking the tires of Disney's Miramax, according to the New York Post. That deal might be easier for small Lions Gate to digest compared with MGM. 

More commercials coming to the Web. You knew those days of one or two spots while watching a TV show on Hulu weren't going to last. With more shows ending up online and more advertisers and networks wanting to count all their viewers, not just the ones watching on TV, that means the commercial loads on the Internet will be bigger. The bad news from Advertising Age.

Olympic torch flickering? With the Winter Olympics just a week away and NBC already confirming it expects to lose $250 million, the usual debate about the value of big sporting events is going full blast. Broadcasting & Cable weighs in with an analysis of the pros and cons to the games. Don't worry, this won't be the last story on the subject over the next few weeks. 

Inside the Los Angeles Times: ABC's "The View" is becoming more political, and so far it's not hurting the show.

-- Joe Flint

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Leno and Letterman have some fun with a little help from Oprah in Super Bowl spot.

Jay Leno's rehabilitation tour continued in full force on Super Bowl Sunday when he appeared in a commercial with archrival David Letterman and queen of talk Oprah Winfrey during CBS' coverage of the game.

The spot, shot last week, is a sign of at least a minor peace treaty between Leno and Letterman. It is also similar to a spot that Letterman did with Winfrey a few years ago when CBS broadcast the Super Bowl match between the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears (with Winfrey rooting for the Bears and Letterman for the Colts). 

In this ad, Letterman, Winfrey and Leno are on a couch watching the game and Letterman gripes that this is the worst "Super Bowl party ever." Winfrey warns him to be nice while Leno says, "He's just saying that because I'm here." Letterman then imitates Leno high-pitched voice. (For more dirt on how the three pulled it off see our sister site Showtracker.)

While the ad is promoting Letterman, it certainly won't hurt Leno, who will be back on at 11:35 p.m. going as host of NBC's "The Tonight Show" after the network's coverage of the Olympics ends.

Leno has already been on Winfrey's daytime talk show to do a little image work. When NBC decided to bring Leno back to late night after his prime-time show failed, which led to Conan O'Brien to quit as host of "The Tonight Show," Leno was attacked by Letterman and others for helping NBC push O'Brien under the bus. 

-- Joe Flint

'Crazy Heart' gets biggest Oscar boost at the box office

Academy Awards voters may not have given it one of the 10  best picture slots, but moviegoers made "Crazy Heart" the biggest beneficiary of Oscar momentum at the box office this weekend.

Fox Searchlight's country-music drama "Crazy Heart," which received three nominations, including best actor for Jeff Bridges, expanded from 239 locations to 819 this weekend and collected a studio-estimated $3.65 million, or $4,457 per theater. That's by far the best performance of any film that tried to take advantage of Academy Award nominations this weekend.

The movie did particularly well in Florida, a sign that older audiences were taking to the tale of a past-his-prime country singer, said Sheila DeLoache, Fox Searchlight executive vice president of distribution. It has collected $11.2 million so far and will expand to about 1,000 theaters on Friday.

Several best picture nominees didn't fare nearly as well. Sony Pictures Classics expanded "An Education" from 75 theaters to 761 and generated $915,407, or a relatively soft $1,203 per theater. Its total so far is $9.7 million.

Lionsgate had hoped to build on the $45.6 million that "Precious" made through last Thursday primarily from African American moviegoers by taking the dark but inspiring drama from 222 theaters to 669 and reaching a more diverse audience. However, the best picture nominee sold just $440,000 worth of tickets, or $650 per theater.

Summit Entertainment expanded "The Hurt Locker," considered the front-runner for a best picture win along with "Avatar," from 38 theaters to 110. The Iraq war drama, undoubtedly slowed by the fact that it was already on DVD, took in just $123,000, or $1,118 per location.

Two best picture nominees already in wide release, "Up in the Air" and "The Blind Side," appear to have been helped this weekend by Oscar attention. The two movies saw their ticket sales decline just 16% and 14%, respectively, the smallest drops for either since the new year.

Sony Classics' "The Last Station," which got two acting nominations, went from nine theaters to 51 and took in a healthy $371,064, or $7,226 per theater. Its total domestic gross is now $758,531.

For more on the performance of this weekend's new movies in wide release, "Dear John" and "From Paris With Love," as well as "Avatar" on its eighth weekend, see our initial box office post.

Here are the top 10 films at the domestic box office, according to studio estimates and Hollywood.com:

First look: 'Dear John' steals first place from 'Avatar' while 'From Paris With Love' flops [Updated]

In the first major box office shocker of 2010, tearjerker "Dear John" displaced "Avatar" from the top of the chart with  a very strong $32.4 million opening in the U.S. and Canada, according to an estimate from distributor Sony Pictures.

James Cameron's 3-D spectacle "Avatar" took in $23.6 million, bringing its domestic total to $630.1 million. "Avatar" ticket sales were down 25% on its eighth weekend. That's the science-fiction blockbuster's second-highest decline since it launched, demonstrating that it was affected by the new competition.

Pre-release surveys had indicated that "Dear John," Hollywood's latest adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel, would open to a little more than $20 million. Its surprising strength is another sign of the power of the young female audience, which last year drove hits such as "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" and "Hannah Montana: The Movie." Its audience was 84% female, and 64% were younger than 21, according to exit polls.

"Dear John" was the biggest debut for a movie on Super Bowl weekend, edging out "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds," which started with $31.1 million in 2008.

Sony Pictures distributed "Dear John," which stars Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried, for financier Relativity Media, which said it spent $25 million to make the movie. However, one person close to the production said the cost was $35 million.

The weekend's other new film, the John Travolta action flick "From Paris With Love," opened to a very disappointing $8.1 million. Distributor Lionsgate, which bought distribution rights to the picture from Europa Corp., had hoped to replicate the success of "Taken." That action movie, which, like "From Paris," was directed by Pierre Morel, debuted to $24.7 million on Super Bowl weekend last year.

[Update, 10:20 a.m.: Lionsgate paid $12 million to distribute "From Paris With Love" domestically and in several overseas territories. 1.44 p.m: an earlier version of this update said $23 million instead of $12 million.]

"Edge of Darkness," Mel Gibson's return to a big-screen starring role after an eight-year absence, declined a sizable 59% on its second weekend to $7 million, making its total after 10 days $29.1 million. Romantic comedy "When in Rome" fell 55% on its second weekend to $5.5 million. Its total at the end of its second weekend is a soft $20.9 million.

-- Ben Fritz

Update, 11:30 a.m.: For details on the performance of movies that looked to benefit from Oscar nominations this weekend, see our second box office post.

Top photo: Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfriend in "Dear John." Credit: Scott Garfield / Sony Pictures

Bottom photo: John Travolta, left, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers in "From Paris With Love." Credit: Rico Torres / Lionsgate

Opening day: 'Dear John' headed toward surprise win over 'Avatar'

The reign of "Avatar" at the box office is ending a week earlier than expected.

Based on Friday ticket sales, Sony Pictures' romantic tear-jerker "Dear John" is headed toward a much stronger-than-expected opening weekend of more than $30 million, which would make it the most popular movie in the U.S. and Canada. 20th Century Fox's "Avatar" is on track to gross $22 million or $23 million.

"Dear John," based on a novel by "The Notebook" author Nicholas Sparks, sold $13.8 million worth of tickets Friday, according to Sony. Fox said the 3-D blockbuster "Avatar" took in $6.8 million.

"Avatar" has ruled the box office for seven straight weeks and had been expected to do so one final time, based on surveys of potential moviegoers.

Lionsgate's John Travolta action picture "From Paris With Love," meanwhile, collected just $3 million Friday and is headed toward a disappointing weekend debut of less than $10 million.

-- Ben Fritz

Photo: Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried in "Dear John." Credit: Scott Garfield / Sony Pictures

Sources: JP Morgan raises financing to pay for rollout of digital cinema

Lifting a roadblock to the rollout of 3-D in theaters, investment firm JP Morgan has raised nearly $700 million to finance the digital conversion of thousands of screens around the country, three people familiar with the matter said Friday.

The funding, delayed for longer than a year due to the credit crunch, would pay for the installation of digital projectors for about 12,000 screens, easing a bottleneck caused by an abundance of 3-D movies competing for not enough screens. There are currently only about 3,500 digital 3-D screens in the country.

The shortage of screens has created tensions between studios as they muscle each other to get their 3-D pictures into theaters. Warner Bros.' "Clash of the Titans," for example, is set open a week after DreamWorks Animation Studios releases its next animated movie, "How to Train Your Dragon" on March 26. Those movies also will compete for screens with Disney's "Alice in Wonderland," which premieres March 5.

The funding, expected to be formally announced in the next two weeks after studios sign off on the deal,  comes nearly three years after the nation's largest exhibitors -- AMC, Cinemark and Regal -- formed a consortium know as Digital Cinema Implementation Partners to pay for the digital conversion of theaters.

In 2008, the group said it reached an agreement with five studios to raise $1 billion toward retrofitting theaters. The funding would be secured through so-called virtual print fees.

-- Richard Verrier

Andrea Wong leaving Lifetime

Andrea Wong, chief executive of Lifetime for nearly three years, is leaving the network. Her contract was due to expire in April.

The shake-up comes less than six months after a corporate restructuring that lumped Lifetime into the A&E Television Networks group, leaving Wong no longer the top executive at the joint venture between Hearst Corp. and Walt Disney Co. Instead, she reported to Abbe Raven, the head of A&E Television Networks. 

Wong worked to give Lifetime a makeover from the network's frumpy image -- but some of her bold business moves backfired.

The MIT graduate agreed to spend more than $150 million to nab the hit show "Project Runway" from Bravo. The expensive deal, which wound up in court when NBC Universal contested the legitimacy of the channel switch, included dozens of movies from the Weinstein Co. that were viewed as stinkers. While "Project Runway" performed well -- though down considerably from when it aired on Bravo -- ratings at the channel have been sliding. It was not the uplifting Lifetime story that Wong was hoping to write when she left her prominent job at ABC in 2007. 

Wong's departure was first reported by the blog deadline hollywood.  It is unclear where Wong will land.

-- Meg James 

More trips to Capitol Hill for Comcast and NBC Universal

Comcast and NBC Universal executives may be through arguing about their merger with former "Saturday Night Live" performer Sen. Al Franken, but the two companies will be making return trips to Capitol Hill to again sell their deal in the weeks ahead.

On Thursday, Comcast chief executive Brian Roberts and NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker had a long day in front of both the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet and the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights.

Besides being grilled on whether a marriage of the nation's biggest cable and broadband provider with a content giant would be bad for consumers and competition, Franken (D-Minn.) made the process personal, accusing NBC of lying in the past about how it does business.

"You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t trust these promises, and that is from experience in this business," Franken said in his opening remarks during the Senate subcommittee hearing.

Roberts and Zucker will have a few weeks off before the next round of hearings about the deal, which would see Comcast take a 51% stake in General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal.

Both the House Judiciary Committee and the Senate Commerce Committee are expected to grill Comcast and NBC Universal about the proposed $30-billion deal either later this month or in early March.

The Federal Communications Commission, which along with the Justice Department will decide on whether to approve the deal and what, if any, conditions should be attached, will issue a public notice in a few weeks to the industry and media watchdogs to file comments on the transaction.

Although Congress has no formal role in the approval process, it does have oversight over both the FCC and the DOJ. The issues raised Thursday and likely issues that will come up at future hearings could set a tone for the type of scrutiny the Comcast - NBC Universal sale will receive from the FCC and DOJ. In other words, the point of the hearings is that lawmakers get to send a message to regulators about their concerns.

-- Joe Flint

Related post: Al Franken comes out swining against Comcast-NBC deal.

Photo: Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, left, and NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker are sworn in at a Senate hearing Thursday. Credit: Chris Kleponis / Getty Images