SitcomsOnline.com News Blog

Day 11: WGA's Writers' Strike; In2TV to Re-Launch; M*A*S*H Marathon Score for TV Land

We are now on day 11 of the writers' strike. Reality/game shows will dominate the schedule soon when originals of scripted series run out. The Office runs out after tonight's airing. CBS's new sitcom The Big Bang Theory ran out of new episodes this past Monday. Rules of Engagement looks like will run out of episodes after its airing this Monday. Which means half of CBS's Monday sitcom line-up would have ended...the other two are expected to end after their Monday, Nov. 26 airings.
NBC has announced that its struggling new series Life, which airs Wednesdays at 10, will have a special two-part episode which will air following the finale of Heroes on December 3 at 10pm. Part two will air in its regular timeslot on Dec. 5. NBC will also have a special three night Deal or No Deal stunt a week later, on Dec. 10-12 starting at 8pm. Following that NBC will launch the new series Clash of the Choirs, which will air Dec. 17-21 at 8pm. Michael Bolton, Patti LaBelle, Nick Lachey, Kelly Rowland and Blake Shelton will embark on a musical challenge as they return to their hometowns to assemble an amateur choir and prepare them to compete live in studio for the title of America's best choir. ABC will counteract with a new gameshow called Duel the same four nights, but with also an airing on Sunday, Dec. 23 at 8pm. Duel is a tournament style competition featuring head-to-head matches with nerve rattling game play rewarding contestants who embrace shrewdness and manipulation to win. If a contestant can react quickly under pressure and outsmart their opponent using strategy and deception, intellect and skill, they could walk away with up to $2 million.
We gave you ABC's holiday plans (with more coming probably), now we will give you CBS's. The classic holiday special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer will air Tuesday, December 4 from 8-9pm on CBS, head-to-head against ABC's Santa Claus is Coming to Town. CBS will also air the classic special Frosty the Snowman on Friday, December 7 at 8pm, followed by Frosty Returns at 8:30. CBS will also air the holiday movie Elf on Saturday, Dec. 22.

MediaPost is reporting that AOL/Warner Bros. plan to relaunch their In2TV co-venture sometime next year, as the broadband network with full episodes of old-time hits has failed to gain traction since debuting in early 2006. They said it would be "reinvented" by the second quarter next year. A redesign and the addition of some sort of social networking capabilities are expected. The service's section, with memorable show theme songs, might also be an untapped resource. The site's experience is "not immersive" enough.
The coming relaunch is an example of the commitment of the studio--which produces a run of current prime-time hits--to exploiting its library via new distribution channels.
Also next spring, the company has said it will launch TWorks.com--a site focusing on animation with shows such as Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera series. The company said the venture, which will have original content produced by Warner Bros., will also include games and virtual worlds.
So what does this mean? We are not 100% sure...but let's hope they don't remove all of the classic TV on In2TV. So this is the reason why there have not been many new episodes for series on In2TV. They started by giving us 4 new episodes a month, but that hasn't happened in many months now. We will keep you up to date on any further development.

TV Land's M*A*S*H Mail Call Marathon averaged big gains across several key categories during the programming event, which aired on Saturday, November 10 and Sunday, November 11, in honor of Veteran's Day. The eighteen episode programming salute scored double-digit gains in rating and delivery among its target A25-54 audience and total viewers over last year while doubling delivery among its core audience of A40-54. The M*A*S*H Mail Call featured episodes about members of the 4077th sending and receiving letters from loved ones. M*A*S*H averaged a 0.5/524,000 among A25-54, representing a +67% lift in ratings and +95% increase in delivery over the same period last year. TV Land averaged over 1 million total viewers, an increase of +79% over YAGO. Among its core audience, Adults 40-54, TV Land secured substantial gains in rating and delivery, averaging a 0.7/404,000, representing a rise of +75% in rating and +108% in delivery.
In other TV Land news, starting in December Mondays 4-5PM will now be Sanford & Son, thus it will be Mon-Fri instead of Tues-Fri. Gunsmoke will be 2-4pm on Mondays now, with Bonanza 11a-2p Mondays.
On Saturday, Dec. 8, the 12PM encore of the movie Beaches will be replaced by I Love Lucy from 12pm-2:30pm. I Love Lucy's morning airing that morning from 10a-12p will be Designing Women instead. On Saturday, December 15, encores of the movie Wall Street are canceled in the afternoon, so we will get a Three's Company marathon from 1-5pm. Wall Street encore will now air from 7-9:30pm, with Andy Griffith following at 9:30pm.