Still Talkin TV

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Bill O’Loughlin is out, Stefan Mychajliw is in on Channel 2’s daily  noon debate show, which will have the more alliterative name of “2 Sides with (Kristy) Mazurek and Mychajliw.”

According to sources, the NBC affiliate is expected to announce the switch Friday and it will take place on Monday. The same sources say that O’Loughlin prefers to work alone as he had when he worked in radio, when the TV show started in late night and when it continued at noon this fall before Mazurek came aboard to try and spark debate and spike ratings.

The station also is expected to announce Friday that its 10 p.m. news program on WNYO-TV anchored by former Channel 4 anchor reporter Melissa Holmes will have a new format and be renamed “Ten at 10” when it premieres on Monday.

First things first. Mychajliw is returning to Channel 2, where he was an aggressive reporter for 14 years before making a switch to public relations and continuing to get plenty of TV time as the spokesman for former Buffalo Schools Superintendent James Williams.

The station was impressed by Mychajliw’s recent guest appearance on the noon show with Mazurek. He clearly is a much stronger television personality than O’Loughlin, who basically was a radio performer doing TV.

While journalists are expected to avoid partisan politics, Mychajliw’s political leanings became an open book after he left Channel 2. He recently worked on Republican Chris Collins’ losing re-election campaign for county executive.

The Syracuse University graduate is co-founder of Profit Media Group, a public relations firm that specializes in crisis communications, media training for businesses and marketing services.

Mychajliw will now have a daily debate with Mazurek, a former news anchor and investigative reporter whose politics also are on an open book. She is a member of the Erie County Democratic Committee and Democratic campaign coordinator.

Now on to the new 10 p.m. newscast that debuts Monday, three days before the start of the February sweeps.

The format switch will make Channel 2’s 10 o’clock news potentially  look much different than Channel 4’s 10 O’Clock News on WNLO-TV, which has two to three times the audience  as Channel 2’s newscast at that hour.

Holmes will anchor a newscast that will deliver the 10 biggest stories that effect Western New Yorkers and then allow viewers to decide which  stories are the most important and interact socially about them.

Channel 4 also will have a new look on its 10 p.m. newscast on WNLO-TV next week. The station announced today that new anchor hire Diana Fairbanks will make her debut at 5:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Monday. The station also is expected to unveil a new high definition set.

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Scott Pelley: Doing Well Here

The difference between TV news and the Buffalo News couldn’t have been more on display than on the coverage of this Tuesday’s report that Roswell Park Cancer Institute plans a clinical trial on a vaccine that may prevent a relapse of various cancers.

The local stations led with the story and spent a considerable amount of time talking about the significance it not only has on curing some cancer patients but also perhaps curing the Western New York economy.

I immediately thought, “Wow. Curing cancer. That’s the kind of story that the network newscasts surely would use and perhaps even lead their newscasts with.”

To my surprise, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams didn’t touch it Tuesday night.

I also thought that that it could be a page 1 story in the Wednesday edition of the Buffalo News. So I looked for it. And looked for it. And looked for it.

I finally found a one-column head and a short story by the Buffalo News’ highly-respected medical reporter Henry Davis on the back of the B section, near the weather.

The play of the story suggested to me that the News’ editors may have felt it was premature to shout as loudly as the local TV stations about curing anything until the trial is concluded and the results are tabulated. Let’s see and read how it plays after the clinical trial is over.

Much is being made nationally of the declining national ratings for President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night. The Prez did OK here, getting a combined rating of 17.3 points (representing 17.3 percent of TV households) on the four local network affiliates, led by a 7.0 on Channel 2, the NBC affiliate. Of course, additional viewers were watching on CNN and the other cable news channels.  The combined rating isn’t anywhere near what the NFC conference finals had Sunday, but it would be the highest non-football rating of the week locally and about 70 percent higher than “American Idol.”

Inquiring minds want to know how the new Charlie Rose-Gayle King version of the CBS Morning News is doing locally. It starts out decently in the first half-hour after getting a strong lead-in from Channel 4’s “Wake Up,” but then slips to its usual third-place rating in the 2s. NBC’s “Today” still dominates here.

On the other hand, the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley appears to be on a local roll. NBC remains an even stronger No. 1 here because of the lead-in from Channel 2’s stronger 6 p.m. news. But Pelley’s newscast is a strong No.2 locally, with the help of Channel 4’s lead-in from its 6 p.m. news. ABC’s “World News Tonight” with Diane Sawyer is a weak third here, primarily because of the poor lead-in from Channel 7’s third place 6 p.m. news.

I’ve been getting daily annoying Twitter messages from local supporters of the ABC soaps that have been canceled and replaced in the afternoon by the cheaper talk shows “The Chew” and “The Revolution.” Locally, the new shows aren’t averaging a 2 rating yet on Channel 7. But it is a marathon and not a sprint and afternoon shows generally don’t do all that well these days.

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Kiefer Sutherland

You can’t accuse writer-producer Tim Kring  of “Heroes” fame of creating shows painted by the numbers.

Kring hasn’t lost his touch for the complicated in his latest compelling series – Fox’s “Touch” — premiering tonight at 9 on WUTV.

It stars Kiefer Sutherland, as a widowed, frustrated father raising an autistic 10-year-old child who has an unusual connection with numbers and patterns that can help predict and influence the future.

Sutherland’s character, Martin Bohm, can’t connect with his son, Jake (David Mazouz), who doesn’t speak and gets in all sorts of trouble trying to get others to listen to his theories.

After tonight’s post-“Idol” premiere, “Touch” doesn’t return to Fox until March 19. It may take that long for some viewers to understand everything going on in a pilot that travels the world and is as busy as Grand Central Terminal during rush hour.

Viewers are introduced to characters in New York City, London, Japan and Iraq who may have lost touch with their lives in a fast-paced world full of terrorists, dreamers and tortured souls like Sutherland’s character, whose late wife was a stockbroker killed on 9/11.

The plot also includes a Brit trying to connect in some way with his daughter and a Baghdad teenage comedian trying to find an oven by any means necessary for his family.

The pilot is loaded with coincidences and confusing mathematical formulas, but it has its heart in the right place and is bound to appeal to those who believe in the positive influence technology can have  in making human connections.

Sutherland gives a strong performance as a sympathetic character who has some of Jack Bauer’s traits, most notably anger issues. Martin also is trying to save the world, one soul at a time. It’s hard to blame him for being frustrated about his inability to connect with his son and the inability of a beautiful social worker, Clea Hopkins (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), to initially understand how much father and son need each other. Danny Glover also is a guest star as Arthur Teller, who explains Martin’s destiny to him.

As in “Heroes,” Kring uses sub-titles for the foreign characters. Unlike “Heroes,” “Touch” has a more realistic backdrop along with its improbable coincidences and contrived moments (the oven story is a head-shaker) in an hour that throws everything out but the kitchen sink.

In the end, everything in the world seems to be connected, which is the theme of the series.

It won’t be as hard as waiting for “Mad Men” in March, but “Touch” has enough of the right touches to make viewers want to connect with it again.

Rating: 3 stars out of 4

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Tom Brady

This doesn’t appear to be the lucky season of “American Idol.”

The New York Giants’ 20-17 overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship game pushed a special Sunday edition of “Idol” back to 11 p.m. Eastern time.

That negated the promotional boost “Idol” was expected to get from the football lead-in in a season that already has shown steep local and national ratings decline.

Sure enough, the majority of WUTV viewers fled Sunday after the post-game coverage. The Giants win averaged a 31.9 rating on Channel 29. It had a 36.7 rating in the last 15 minutes when the Giants kicked the winning field goal. Two-thirds of those viewers left “Idol.” It started out with a 12.5 rating and gradually lost its audience. It averaged a 9.3 rating on Channel 29 for the hour, finishing with an 7.9 in the last 15 minutes when many people go to bed.

New England’s win over Baltimore had a 31.5 rating on Channel 4. While the Buffalo ratings for the games was higher than the national average, the 2011 conference title games had higher ratings here. Pittsburgh’s win over the New York Jets had a 35.7 rating on Channel 4 and Green Bay’s win over Chicago had a 34.4 on Channel 29.

Still, the New England-New York Giant Super Bowl rematch featuring top quarterbacks Eli Manning and Tom Brady should be a big local and national draw, with a rating as high as 50 certainly possible here. After all, WNYers hate the Pats and many displaced New Yorkers who live here still love the Giants.

NBC probably would hope for a Super Bowl that goes into overtime, but that won’t help its karaoke show, “The Voice.” Its new season is slated to premiere after the game. If the game goes long, “The Voice” will experience the same fate as “Idol” did Sunday.

If you want to catch up with what former Channel 4 anchors and reporters Lisa Flynn, Michele McClintick and Ellen Maxwell are up to, pick up a copy of Buffalo Spree magazine. My piece on their lives after TV and their views of TV news appear in the February issue.

That was a nice sympathetic and heartwarming piece on 97 Rock’s Larry Norton in the Buffalo News. The paper reported he has been doing his morning show from Florida for more than three years. Of course, stilltalkintv reported that five months ago and noted the station didn’t want to refer to his whereabouts too often. The News story was a PR person’s dream, which sympathetically noted that Norton first moved there to take care of his father, Wallace Norton. His father died in November, 2010.

That begs the question left unanswered in the story. His dad died more than a year ago. Why hasn’t  Norton come back to Buffalo full-time since then to do his show?

Norton isn’t the first radio personality to work from Florida. Former WGR sports talk show host Chuck Dickerson bashed the Bills regularly from Florida.

When I worked at newspaper, I used to think that many letters to the editors demanded an answer. That was the case this Sunday when a reader asked why DISH customers don’t get the same support as TWC subscribers who have lost Sabre games due to a contract battle with rights-holder MSG. That’s easy. DISH has a fraction of the subscribers that TWC has in WNY and most sports fans have a satellite preference for DirecTV .

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CNN's John King

This is what I’m thinking:

I hope Buffalo Bills fans didn’t get their hopes up reading the front page story in Saturday’s Buffalo News with the headline of “Blackout Rules for NFL Games Studied by FCC.”

Don’t hold your breath waiting for NFL blackouts to end. These kinds of political issues generally take years to resolve and even longer if there is a change in the presidency and another one involving who heads the FCC. The Bills might even be decent again and selling out every home game by the time anything regarding the blackout rules changes.

It was another case of a politician – in this case Congressman Brian Higgins –  getting some good publicity for something that he is unlikely to have much influence on. I mean what politician wouldn’t want to be on the side of sports fans who are tired of sports blackouts?

This is the sort of free publicity grab that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman made when he announced he would try to get Time Warner Cable and MSG officials to meet again to resolve the dispute which has mercifully kept Buffalo Sabre games off of local cable.

Did anything happen? Nah.

The News story on the blackout issue (which made the front page even though it ran a week after it had been reported elsewhere) noted that sports fans “may get a reprieve” from blackouts now that a “longtime federal policy that prevents satellite and cable broadcasters from airing games that are not sold out” is being reconsidered by the FCC.

NFL blackout rules prevent games from being carried on local broadcast affiliates if they aren’t sold out 72 hours in advance. Under NFL rules, Channel 4 can’t carry CBS broadcasts of Bills home games if they aren’t sold out 72 hours in advance and Channel 29 can’t carry Fox broadcasts of Bills home games that aren’t sold out 72 hours in advance. (Sometimes, the rule is relaxed to 24 or 48 hours.)

The FCC blackout rule prohibits cable and satellite carriers from carrying the same game that local broadcasters can’t carry. That’s why Bills fans can’t get non-sold out home games on DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket, which carries every NFL game not subject to league blackout rules..

FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell reportedly wants to take a fresh look at the rule “in light of marketplace changes.” He added that television and merchandising revenues now exceed ticket sales. Earth to McDowell. It has been that way for decades. The Bills TV millions far exceed the money they get from ticket sales. My best estimate is that TV revenue is at least two times as much as Bills ticket sale revenue. The TV money enables small market teams like Buffalo to survive.

The FCC’s plan to revisit the rule led Higgins to send a letter to the FCC noting that Bills fans are harmed more by the blackout rule because Ralph Wilson Stadium has a capacity that is 6,000 more than the average league attendance and that makes sellouts harder.

“Last year almost half of Bills home games were blacked out,” Higgins reportedly said on the House floor. “That is unacceptable.”

With all due respect, the capacity of The Ralph isn’t the problem. It actually helps the small market team stay here. The Bills used to sell out when they had 80,000 seats. All the losses in recent non-playoff years, the Buffalo weather and a 2011 schedule loaded with December games were the problem.

I can almost hear the counter-arguments from the Bills about why the NFL blackout rule is necessary.  The team’s ticket costs are among the lowest in the league, which should make it easier to sell-out the games. I pay $80 a ticket to sit on the 50-yard line. A buddy of mine has New York Giants season tickets in the same place for triple that amount and he also has to pay a seat license fee.

Additionally, the Bills (and other cold weather cities with lousy teams) probably will argue that if the NFL blackout rule is dropped that ticket sales for any games in November and December will plummet, and the league doesn’t want to become a studio sport that plays games before empty stadiums. I mean why pay for a ticket for a game in the rain or the snow if you know every game is going to be on TV?

I’m not saying that the FCC shouldn’t revisit the rule. The NFL knows its own rule isn’t enforceable anymore because of internet thief. Several long-suffering friends of mine have told me that they’ve been able to go on internet sites to watch Bills blacked-out games (as well as Sabres games during the TWC-MSG mess).

So it wouldn’t be surprising if the NFL eventually does something about the piracy and relaxes its blackout rule even if the FCC takes years to decide to do nothing. I can see the NFL eventually allowing blackout-out games to be carried on cable or satellite for a price say of $20 to $40 a household.

The News story also suggests that the NFL will be joined by other leagues in opposing any changes to the blackout rule. However, the NHL and the NBA generally don’t blackout home games that don’t sell-out. As every baseball fan in Buffalo knows, major league baseball blackout rules are so confusing that somehow Cleveland and Pittsburgh are considered home markets in Buffalo and their games are often blacked out on ESPN. Now that’s ludicrous.

CNN’s John King has taken plenty of heat for starting the South Carolina Republican debate by asking Newt Gingrich about one of his ex-wife’s salacious claims in an interview with ABC News. Gingrich used the timing of the question to attack the well-respected King and the media, which is something that Republicans do best.

Should King have waited a little to ask a question that deserved to be asked? Probably. One of the elementary rules of interviewing is to wait for an appropriate time to ask the tough questions. Having said that, Gingrich owes King (and Gingrich’s ex-wife) a thank you. His response helped him win the South Carolina primary a few days later.

Finally, CNN’s Susan Candiotti initially reported on the death of Penn State’s legendary football Coach Joe Paterno Sunday morning without referencing the sex abuse scandal involving one of his former assistants, Jerry Sandusky, that led to Paterno’s firing. Howard Kurtz, the host of the CNN media show “Reliable Sources,” appeared surprised by that omission. He immediately asked Candiotti what prominence that sad chapter would have on Paterno’s obituaries and eulogies. By the way, Candiotti was a Channel 2 reporter once upon a time.

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This is what I’m thinking:

Jon Hamm

The glory days of “American Idol” seem to be over in Western New York.

As predicted here Wednesday, the karaoke singing competition series took a big hit locally for its two-hour premiere.

The premiere had an 11.0 rating (representing 11 percent of area TVs) on Fox affiliate WUTV, which was down about 25 percent from the 14.9 rating the 2011 premiere had on the station. The 25 percent hit was considerably above the reported 17 percent national decline for the premiere.

However, the local rating comes with some asterisks. A year ago, the “Idol” premiere didn’t have to compete with a Buffalo Sabres game on cable. And while the 11.0 rating isn’t close to the ratings for popular CBS shows in WNY, “Idol” remains the top-rated regular Fox series locally by far. And it remains a significant demographic hit.

It is difficult to determine how much audience “Idol” lost to the Sabres game with Chicago Wednesday because the Fox show would appear to draw from a different audience. The Sabres 6-2 loss to Patrick Kane and the Blackhawks on the NBC Sports Network (formerly Versus) had a 7.7 local rating. It beat “Modern Family,” ABC’s popular and award-winning comedy, which averaged a 7.4 rating.

Thursday’s hour-long installment of “Idol” at 8 p.m. dropped to a 10.0 rating on WUTV, down about 30 percent from the 13.3 rating a year ago. It finished second in the first half hour of its time slot to CBS’ “Big Bang Theory,” which had a 16.6 rating on Channel 4.

It is too early to predict how low “Idol” will go this season. Judges Jennifer Lopez, Steven Tyler and Randy Jackson certainly did everything they could Wednesday to tell the audience that this year’s crop of singers is better than that of years past as they passed several performers in a row on to Hollywood.

Wondering what the highest-rated TV program of last week was in WNY? That’s easy. It was the New York Giants upset of Green Bay Sunday in the NFC playoffs with a preliminary rating of 29.2 on WUTV, almost three times the “Idol” audience. Baltimore’s Sunday win over Houston had a 24.0 preliminary rating on Channel 4, the local CBS affiliate. As usual, the two Saturday games had lower ratings here. San Francisco’s victory over New Orleans in the best game of the weekend had a 21.8  preliminary rating on WUTV. The lowest football rating of the weekend was New England’s romp over Denver and Tim Tebow on Channel 4 with a 19.9. Buffalo fans found out weeks earlier that Tebow Magic was an illusion when the Bills beat the Broncos.

AMC announced a week ago ( a few days after star Jon Hamm) during the Television Critics Association meetings in Pasadena, Calif. that the return of “Mad Men” will be Sunday, March 25, but for some reason it became a big Twitter item Thursday. Showtime  also announced last week that “Nurse Jackie,’ “The Big C” and “The Borgias” will return Sunday, April 8.

Meanwhile, NBC announced that the two-hour premiere of Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice” has been moved back a week to Feb. 19 and that “Harry’s Law” will move to 8 p.m. Sunday on March 11.

Melissa Holmes reported on Facebook Thursday that she probably will make her debut Monday as Channel 2′s 10 p.m. anchor on WNYO-TV.

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Diana Fairbanks

Like a good reporter, Diana Fairbanks did a little up-close and personal research before deciding to join Channel 4 to anchor its 5:30 p.m. weekday newscast and the 10 p.m. weekday newscast on sister station WNLO-TV.

As she walked through the Channel 4 newsroom during one of her recruiting visits to the station late last fall, she noticed something about the station personnel.

“It didn’t take very much to see they had some really strong veterans and a lot of young people,” said Fairbanks in a telephone interview. “They seemed to be missing people in the middle. I asked about it and was told that’s why they wanted to bring me in.”

Fairbanks is expected to make her on-air debut within the next week or so after the station does some promotion and its new high definition set is ready for the February sweeps.

She arrives after working at two stations in Traverse City, Mich., for more than 11 years. She worked her way up from morning anchor to evening anchor. Judging by a goodbye piece done by her co-anchor and subsequent Facebook comments, Fairbanks became an extremely popular, community-minded anchor.

And she plans to follow the same script in Buffalo.

“It is real important if you report on the community that you care about it,” said Fairbanks. “It is  important to find why the people love where they are living.”

She can’t love where she is living now. She’s in an Buffalo apartment while her husband stays in Michigan and tries to sell their house. The couple has a daughter.

According to the farewell piece by her Michigan co-anchor, Fairbanks didn’t expect to stay in Traverse City for as long as she did. But she said an anchor promotion, the birth of the couple’s child and her husband’s job in public relations for a ski resort made re-signing new deals the right thing to do.

“It (Traverse City) is a great community, which is one of the reasons it was so easy to stay there,” said Fairbanks.

She started talking to Channel 4 in the fall and finally signed with the station right around Christmas. She is aware that Channel 4 has cut its staff in recent years, but said it is an industry trend and added the same thing happened in Michigan and it wasn’t done as well.

“Hopefully, the industry is on the upswing,” said Fairbanks.

After months of negativity, Channel 4 is  hoping Fairbanks will help put the station on the upswing as well.

I owe Syracuse University basketball legend Carmelo Anthony an apology. Earlier today, I asked what was he thinking when he agreed to appear in an episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” that seems to be inspired by the ongoing Bernie Fine scandal at SU?

According to a NBC release, the New York Knick star and Miami Heat star Chris Bosh appear in next Wednesday’s 10 p.m. episode. Here’s the summary of the episode as provided by NBC: “When a well-respected basketball coach (guest star Dan Lauria) is accused of sexual abuse, Detectives Olivia Benson (Mariskia Hargitay) and Odafin Tutuola (Ice-T) are joined by a new detective Nick Amara (Danny Pino) to uncover the truth about a star player’s (guest star Mehcad Brook) past. Special appearance by Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh.”

“As Coach Ray Masters (Lauria) is inducted to the Metro Basketball Hall of Fame by former students Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh, an ex-player accuses the coach of sexually abusing him as a child. Detective Nick Amaro (Pino) transfers into the SVU squad and is thrown on to the case. The detectives interview former players but no one admits to abuse, forcing Benson (Hargitay) and Fin (Ice-T) to dig deeper into Coach Ray’s most successful player, basketball star Prince Miller (Brooks) and his manager/cousin (guest star Heavy D.) Also starring: Kelli Giddish (Detective Amanda Rollins) and Dann Florek (Captain Donald Cragen.)”

As an astute reader noted today, the episode actually is a repeat that first aired on Sept. 28, weeks before the Fine scandal broke. That’s an eerie coincidence.  You wonder how Anthony feels now about being associated with an episode with obvious similarities to the scandal involving Fine, who used to be his assistant coach at SU. I bet this is one repeat that gets a decent-sized audience.

It is always nice to start the morning with some front-page humor, intentional or not. On Wednesday, the front page of the Buffalo News had this classic preview headline of a story in the sports section: “Hometown Boy: Patrick Kane says he hopes his Blackhawks beat the Sabres tonight.”

As Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers would say on “Saturday Night Live”: “Seriously? Did someone really write that?”

Let’s hope Kane hoped Chicago would win. If Kane hoped the team he grew up rooting for beat the team he plays for professionally, then NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman would have had to consider suspending him for the season. And “Law & Order” would have had to have an episode ready about a hockey star charged with throwing a game. Kane’s Blackhawks won, 6-2.

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Tyler, Lopez and Randy Jackson

This is what I’m thinking:

Will Western New Yorkers continue to be big “American Idol” fans?

That’s a huge question when the American institution premieres tonight after local viewers largely ignored the Simon Cowell copycat singing competition “The X Factor” last fall.

Quickly, name the “X” winner? The show seemed more determined to find a singer with a good story than to find a great performer.

Of course, last year was supposed to be the year that “Idol” slipped severely because of Cowell’s departure. But the arrival of judges Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler kept the local losses down and it remained a hit.

But this year could be different. Fox always had protected “Idol” by refusing to have more than one run of it each season starting in January. The disappointing local ratings and to a lesser degree national ratings for “The X Factor” could be viewed as evidence that it was a wise choice. Now the question is what factor the arrival of “X” and other popular singing competition shows will be on “Idol’s” ratings.

Of course, you could make the argument that the weak “X” viewership suggests local viewers were waiting for the real thing (and I’m not talking about the Coke glasses in front of the judges). But I doubt it.  More likely, viewers are getting tired of all the karaoke on TV. I would expect that there will be a bigger “Idol” decline than last year despite any new creative efforts by the show’s producers unless we see a bigger infusion of talent than there was last year.

If you missed Monday’s salute to 90-year-old Betty White, NBC is repeating it Saturday night. It is a nostalgic, entertaining 90 minutes of television loaded with comments from veteran stars of series that used to air on Saturday nights when the networks carried quality original programs rather than repeats. Viewers undoubtedly will focus on who has aged well (Valerie Harper, a/k/a “Rhoda” gets my vote) and who hasn’t (I think the winner is obvious but won’t name her). Viewers may also be surprised to see how long White has been playing roles in which her characters feasted on double entendres.

I keep reading comments on my site, the Buffalo News site and elsewhere suggesting that Buffalo Sabres owner Terry Pegula buy out the TV contract from MSG and put the games on a local TV station. Of course, once upon a time Channel 2 and Channel 7 used to carry an extensive schedule of Sabre games. But the rules of network affiliation have changed since then. Most, if not all, broadcast deals nowadays would prevent local network affiliates from carrying an extensive schedule of Sabre games. Local affiliates generally are allowed a limited number of preemptions every year in newer deals and some networks are even refusing to allow any preemptions. So you probably should forget seeing an extensive schedule of prime time Sabre games on Channel 2, Channel 4, Channel 7 and Channel 29, all of which have network affiliation deals. That would leave independent stations that would likely be unable to afford the huge rights fee associated with Sabre games.

It probably doesn’t mean anything to the current Time Warner Cable-MSG battle because these things take years, but the Wall Street Journal reported last week that there have been longstanding rumors that TWC might try a takeover attempt of Cablevision, a smaller cable operator that owns MSG. If TWC ever tried and were successful, it would control the cable operator it is fighting with now.

Finally, “The X Factor” winner was Melanie Amaro.

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Katharine McPhee

This is what I’m thinking:

Before she even started on the air on Channel 4, Diana Fairbanks had a fan in Western New York.

Michele McClintick Mehaffy, a former Channel 4 anchor and reporter, briefly worked with Channel 4’s newest anchor hire in Traverse City, Mich. more than a decade ago.

“She is a very solid anchor,” Mehaffy told me via Facebook. “Extremely smart and very personable. I think she’ll really connect with Buffalo viewers. She was loved in Northern Michigan. Fantastic hire for 4.”

Fairbanks will anchor the 5:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. news, which hasn’t had a permanent anchor since Lisa Flynn left Channel 4 more than 18 months ago.

Meryl Streep better bring her glasses if she wins an Academy Award for playing Margaret Thatcher in the biopic “Iron Lady.” Streep’s rambling acceptance speech was one of the low points of Sunday night’s sleepy Golden Globe awards. Next year, winners should be fined if they mention their agents.

While watching San Francisco take the lead over New Orleans Saturday in the fourth quarter of a NFC playoff game, my first thought was “they scored too early” and 49ers quarterback Alex Smith should have taken a knee at the 1-yard line and tried to run out the clock so New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees didn’t get enough time to take the lead back. I was surprised when Fox analyst Daryl Johnston and play-by-play Kenny Albert didn’t at least debate the issue. When Brees led the Saints to a touchdown-leading score in about 30 seconds, my immediate thought was that he also did it too early and left too much time for Smith. Sure enough. Smith had time to lead a final game-winning touchdown drive.

I was in New York City Sunday night after the New York Giants upset defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay but immediately thought I was in Buffalo when the 11 p.m. news came on. Channel 4 in New York spent the first five minutes of the newscasts talking about the Giant win. And you might have thought that only happens in provincial Buffalo.

NBC is calling the lame Chelsea Handler comedy, “Are You There, Chelsea?” a hit after one episode. That was more laughable than anything in the premiere.  The premiere last week had a weak 4.8 rating in Buffalo and things are bound to only get worse now that viewers have sampled it.

I’d also be tempted to criticize NBC for all the promos it has been running for the upcoming musical drama “Smash” if I didn’t love the pilot so much. NBC’s non-stop promos mention it premieres the Monday after the Super Bowl, but NBC actually is giving it multiple previews pre-Feb. 5 on various online media sites and special screenings. Its promos also claim the series is introducing Katharine McPhee, who actually was introduced several seasons ago on “American Idol.” She is being introduced as an actress and gives a stunning performance.

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Sam Neill: Looking for Inmates

The story of Alcatraz is timeless and tonight viewers learn that some of its federal prisoners beat Father Time.

Of course, time goes slowly when you’re in a maximum security prison so perhaps that’s the reason the escaped prisoners in the mysterious Fox series “Alcatraz” haven’t aged in 50 years.

The latest intriguing series from J.J. Abrams’ production company has some elements of “Lost” and some elements of “Mission Impossible.”

Tonight’s 8 p.m. opener on WUTV of two episodes is what is referred to as a premise pilot as it spends an hour explaining what the Fox promos have done in 30 seconds.

Sam Neill (“Jurassic Park”)  stars as Emerson Hauser, a former Alcatraz prison guard who heads  a secret special task force designed to capture 256 former  inmates of The Rock who somehow did the impossible and avoided being transferred after the closing of the federal prison and are on the loose causing more mayhem once they got off the mysterious island. The inmates aren’t the only ones missing. There are also 46 guards unaccounted for.

Emerson’s team responsible for the capture of inmates out for revenge is formed in the first hour tonight. They include a strong, feisty, determined and damaged female detective, Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones) with her own “Rock” history, and a lovable Rock historian Doctor Diego Soto (Jorge Garcia of “Lost”). Parminder Nagra (“ER”) comes aboard in the second hour as Doctor Lucy Banerjee, who has a history with Hauser. The cast also includes Robert Forster as Rebecca’s Uncle Ray and two actors playing villainous wardens. Jason Butler Warner is Associate Tiller in the first hour and Jonny Coyne is Warden James in the less riveting second hour.

“Alcatraz” gets off to a slow start in the first hour because of all the explaining needed to be done, but once it gets going it is decent escapist and rock solid entertainment.

As in Abrams’ Lost, “Alcatraz” is set on an island, features ageless characters and includes a conspiracy (who took and controls the escapees and how are they coming back) and a mystery (why haven’t they aged?). The second episode tonight involving a sniper expands the premise without helping to solve the mystery of how all these bad guys have beaten Father Time while serving time. They are captured one at a time, which gives “Alcatraz” enough material for 12 seasons.

With some decent twists, twisted humor and a 1960s soundtrack, the time for “Alcatraz” once again is now.

Rating: 3 stars out of 4

pergament@msn.com