Fire This

Scott Hardie | February 23, 2004
How disappointed I was to visit Newsweek online today (a Sunday morning ritual) and see a cover story on "The Apprentice." Gosh, an NBC program on the cover of Newsweek magazine, which is a longtime business partner of NBC? What are the odds? This follows the cover story on the "Friends" finale a few months ago. Needless to say, I'm not a fan of media conglomeration.

Jackie Mason | February 23, 2004
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Lori Lancaster | February 23, 2004
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Scott Hardie | February 23, 2004
Jackie: I feel the same way. It's for the fans, though. If I were not a Survivor fan, I would be driven crazy by the excessive coverage of it in the news sites I read.

Lori: "Sex and the City" or "The Apprentice"? Or should I even differentiate?

Anna Gregoline | February 23, 2004
I hate it when television shows pimp other television shows on the same network. Especially those "cross-over" shows.

Lori Lancaster | February 23, 2004
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Anna Gregoline | February 23, 2004
My MOM watched that show, how embarrasing. (Sex in the City). I hated it. It was just...lame and weird to me. I hate to think there are women who emulate those characters.

Dave Stoppenhagen | February 23, 2004
Every woman that I work with come in drooling over the latest Sex in the City episode, and would be talking about it across the office. I'm glad its over

Kris Weberg | February 23, 2004
Such women exist. They all live within a two-mile radius of me, apparently.

Jackie Mason | February 24, 2004
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Steve Dunn | February 24, 2004
Damn, rough crowd.

I love Survivor and The Apprentice. Obviously Mark Burnett knows how to compile a season of footage, but I also find The Apprentice to be a well constructed game. I admire the way Donald Trump is using it to hype all his various projects - it gives me a little marketing thrill like the first time I saw Jeff Probst pay for Mountain Dew with his Visa card. The future is now.

Scott Hardie | February 24, 2004
From today's StudioBriefing:

Hoping to reverse the steady ratings decline for its annual Oscar awards telecast, ABC has enlisted a new production team for the show headed by veteran producer Joe Roth; upped the number of promotional spots for the show on its primetime sitcoms, including references to the awards in the scripts; and hired a team to coach potential winners on what to say during their acceptance speeches, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Journal said that writers of the sitcoms agreed to insert the Oscar plugs because they felt that ABC would give their shows additional promo time once they heard about the Oscar link. Similar references to the Oscars have also been written into the scripts for General Hospital, One Life to Live and All My Children, the WSJ said.

Scott Hardie | February 24, 2004
Newsweek cover or not, I have got to tune in to "The Apprentice" at least once. I did watch the first two episodes of Mark Burnett's "The Restaurant" and enjoyed them quite a bit.

Scott Hardie | February 24, 2004
Let's see Newsweek mention something like this.

Anna Gregoline | February 24, 2004
Weird. I don't understand any of this, but I'm not familiar with the Apprentice. Why do I keep seeing this word though: tchochkes? I've seen it five places today alone.

Scott Hardie | February 25, 2004
I think that was the restaurant where Jennifer Aniston worked in "Office Space."

Anna Gregoline | February 25, 2004
Kinda sounds like it! Funny.

Jackie Mason | February 26, 2004
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