The Morning Fix: Is NBC’s ‘Biggest Loser’ a growing problem? New boss at Disney Channel. Adam Lambert bounced from ABC’s GMA! Cuts at Washignton Post
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After the coffee. Before beating the holiday traffic.
Is NBC’s ‘The Biggest Loser’ a disaster waiting to happen? The New York Times weighs in (yes, bad pun) with a hard-hitting piece on NBC’s weight-loss reality show ‘The Biggest Loser.’ The story says that the winner from the program’s first season is back over 300 pounds and two contestants from this season had to go to the hospital. The participants featured are more overweight each season, and some doctors question the show’s methods. J.D. Roth, an executive producer on the show, acknowledged to reporter Ed Wyatt that at times the show is extreme but added, ‘It needs to be extreme in my opinion. ... For some of these people, this is their last chance.’
New boss at Disney Channel. Walt Disney Co. has tapped Carolina Lightcap, who had overseen Latin America for Disney Channel, to take the CEO position left vacant by Rich Ross when he was named to run Disney’s movie studio. Gary Marsh, the cable channel’s programming chief who was seen as an obvious candidate outside of Disney, has added the title of chief creative officer. Details from Los Angeles Times and Variety.
Time Warner Cable takes battle public. The nation’s second-largest cable operator is launching an ad campaign decrying the rise of programming costs, per the Wall Street Journal. The company is currently in a fight with News Corp. over paying to carry the company’s Fox TV stations and some of its cable channels. Time Warner Cable is telling consumers rising programming costs are to blame for higher cable bills.
So much for covering the country. The Washington Post is shuttering its remaining U.S. bureaus in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, the latest in a series of painful cuts at the once-legendary newspaper. The six reporters hurt by this -- including witty TV columnist Lisa de Moraes -- will be offered positions at the paper’s D.C. headquarters (please keep Lisa covering the biz!). Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz, who used to toil in the paper’s New York bureau, quotes the paper’s editor saying in a memo that ‘we are not a national news organization of record serving a general audience.’
Not a Blockbuster night. The Wrap looks at Blockbuster’s fading fortunes. The video-store chain could shutter 950 outlets by the end of next year. Meanwhile, Netflix and Red Box continue to grow.
Inside the Los Angeles Times: Adam Lambert’s appearance on ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’ was canceled after the singer’s, uh, interesting performance on the ‘American Music Awards.’ While ABC passed, CBS jumped in and said welcome home and got Lambert on its morning show. Betsy Sharkey on ‘The Princess and the Frog.’
-- Joe Flint
The Morning Fix will be off Thursday and return on Friday. Happy Thanksgiving.
