Say Goodbye to NBC as We Know It

NBC musical dazzles critics... mostly

(NEWSER) - If you watched the Super Bowl, you just might have heard of Smash, NBC's new drama about the making of a Broadway musical. It premiered last night, and critics are (mostly) giving it a standing ovation:

• The buzz has gotten so intense that the conversation isn't even about whether it'll be good. "Good? Darling, it's great!" gushes Mary McNamara of the LA Times . The creators have "managed to capture the grand and sweeping gesture that is musical theater and inject it with the immediate intimacy of television," an impressive, unprecedented feat.

NBC gives Handler a lot of freedom: 'LAT'

(NEWSER) - If you were worrying that a Chelsea Handler sitcom on network TV would tame the bawdy comedian, you can stop. Tonight's NBC debut of Are You There, Chelsea? features bartender Chelsea, played by Laura Prepon, behind bars for drunk driving, where she prays (to vodka) and promises to change her life. No, not to quit drinking ... just to relocate within walking distance of the watering hole. The show also includes the sex term "lady wood," the Los Angeles Times notes. More»

Viewership down 9.3% from year before

(NEWSER) - NBC’s long-struggling ratings are only getting worse as the new television season gets under way. Some 3.3 million 18- to 49-year-olds have been tuning in to the network's primetime offerings over the past four weeks, a 9.3% drop from the year before, the Wall Street Journal reports. And if you leave out NFL games, viewership is down 16% from a year earlier, with just 2.2 million viewers. More»

NBC won't renew if he decides to run

(NEWSER) - If Donald Trump decides to run for president, NBC plans to tell him he’s fired. The network hasn’t renewed The Apprentice yet, or done any serious planning about the next season, because it’s holding its breath to see if Trump will formally jump into the 2012 fray, the New York Times reports. If he does, the network will likely put off a new season of the show because it’s afraid other candidates could request equal airtime. More»

Big guns play second fiddle for first time in years

(NEWSER) - It’s been a good few weeks for Jon Stewart: The Daily Show was the top-rated late-night talk show in October—the first such show in at least a decade whose full month’s average beat Letterman’s and Leno’s, says the Hollywood Reporter . Stewart reeled in 1.3 million viewers, compared to 1.2 million each for the Late Show and Tonight Show. More»