The Morning Fix: ABC to brainwash viewers to see “Nine.” MGM may have to sell. Hollywood Reporter may be sold.
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Before the coffee. After remembering those who serve.Clock ticking for MGM. Business Week reports that MGM’s creditors want the studio to be auctioned off. MGM Chief Executive Stephen Cooper is trying to make the case for a restructuring but so far has not been successful. The usual suspects -- Time Warner and News Corp. -- are seen as potential bidders on MGM’s assets.
Sucker for Zucker? Although no deal is in place, Reuters is reporting that Comcast wants Jeff Zucker to stay on and be CEO after it takes majority control of General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal. Of course, Bloomberg reported the same thing two months ago too. If true, it would be the continuation of Zucker’s remarkable rise from ‘Today Show’ producer to head of prime time to head of the company. Many of NBC’s units are doing well, particularly its cable networks. But NBC itself, which is the part of the company Zucker has spent his career there intimately involved with, continues to struggle.
I know, lets go see ‘Nine.’ ABC has struck a deal with the Weinstein Co. to promote the heck out of its upcoming musical ‘Nine.’ Besides the obvious -- having dancers do numbers from the movie on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ -- the movie also will be worked into the plots of daytime soaps including ‘General Hospital’ and ‘One Life to Live.’ Details on the brainwashing from Variety.
From D.C. to Hollywood. News Communications, parent of the Capitol Hill political rag the Hill and the Who’s Who publications, is looking to acquire the Hollywood Reporter and several other publications from its parent Nielsen Media, per the Wrap.The news does not appear to be in the Hollywood Reporter for whatever that’s worth.
Not a lot of glee. ‘Glee’ returns tonight after being off for post-season baseball, but not everyone will be singing about it. Kevin McHale’s role as a member of the glee club who uses a wheelchair has some advocates and disabled actors upset because the role did not go to a disabled actor. USA Today looks at the bump in the road for the Fox hit.
Let’s see this on ‘Gossip Girl.’ Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy recently came to speak at Dalton, a tony Upper East Side private school filled with the sons and daughters of Manhattan’s elite, and laid down the law about how to cover his remarks to the preppies. The New York Times on how a 1st Amendment purist got the school’s newspaper to give him approval over the article before it could be published.
Inside the Los Angeles Times: A chat with Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers’ chief negotiator Carol Lombardini. Mary McNamara on Wanda Sykes and George Lopez.
-- Joe Flint
