Oprah Seals Production Deal With HBO

The golden age of TV may have died this year

(NEWSER) - Today's golden age of TV lost a little shine this year, Heather Havrilesky writes on Salon. Twelve quick months gobbled up all of the momentum and promise from years past, leaving “a haze of crappy, unoriginal new programming, lackluster sophomore shows, flaccid sitcoms and pointless cable comedies.” Old standbys like Heroes and Weeds wilted, while rookies like My Own Worst Enemy and Easy Money collapsed. More»

We don't care about platforms, Michael Wolff argues, we care about shows

(NEWSER) - Sunday should have been a banner night for HBO, with Game of Thrones and the premiere of its latest "zeitgeist-courting" show Girls. But Michael Wolff didn't tune in—though not for lack of trying. Wolff and his companion "don't have HBO. And, it turns out, after some hurried calling around, nobody we know has HBO. They all did; now, they don't," he writes in the Guardian . Pretty much everyone he called deemed HBO either too expensive, too "uncool," or both. "If I were HBO, I'd find this alarming." More»

It will be up against plenty of competition, high channel number

(NEWSER) - The Oprah Winfrey Network is ready to launch January 1, following three years of planning and delays. It will face competition from at least 12 other networks targeting the same female audience, but supporters say it stands out from the rest thanks to, well, Oprah. The Los Angeles Times looks at the network's challenges, most notably that Oprah remains primarily focused on winding down her TV talk show. And that probably won't change until she tapes her last episode in May. More»

(NEWSER) - Some things are certain: death, taxes, and Cinemax showing women with their shoes on having sex late at night. Soft-core porn is "in our DNA," an exec with the parent company of "Skinemax" tells the LA Times . "We're not running away from it." Neither are its premium-cable competitors, which are hardly relegating racier content to late night. Consider HBO's True Blood and Showtime's explicit Californication. More»

Claire Danes shines in title role as animal behavior expert

(NEWSER) - Temple Grandin, the renowned animal behaviorist who credits her achievements to her autism, values "tangible results" over emotion—and so does her HBO biopic. The eponymous film, debuting tomorrow, "avoids the mawkish clichés" so typical of made-for-TV movies, instead delivering "a movie that is funny, instructive, and also intangibly charming," writes Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times . More»