Image via Wikipedia   It became somewhat of a joke among my close friends at the Buffalo News that any time I took a vacation all hell would break loose in the world and TV would cover a hurricane, a school shooting, a hijacking or some other newsworthy event 24/7 that typically required my critique. So ...

Image via Wikipedia ABC News did a story Thursday night asking if President Obama should take his scheduled vacation on Martha’s Vineyard despite the Wall Street craziness going on and the sorry state of the economy. The story fairly pointed out other Presidents who played golf or headed to their ...

Image via Wikipedia Finally, here’s a reason to watch Channel 7 News again. No, Irv, Tom and Rick aren’t coming back. HD is arriving. My spies tell me that Channel 7 has carried an on-air promo announcing that its newscasts will be in high definition. It is scheduled to start Saturday, which also ...

Image via Wikipedia If you’re like me and turn on the TV at night, you’ll often have trouble finding anything worth watching. This is especially true if you are allergic to NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” and its judges – Howie Mandel, Piers Morgan and Sharon Osbourne. So that’s one reason ...

Image by Hawk Eyes via Flickr If anyone is going to miss the histrionics of former CBS play-by-play man Gus Johnson more than the average Buffalo Bills fan, it is analyst Steve Tasker. The life of the former Bill is changing because his TV partner bolted CBS in the offseason to work for Fox. CBS is ...

Cover of Teri Hatcher This is what I’m thinking: * On Sunday, one of my favorite cable series, CNN’s “Reliable Sources” with UB graduate Howard Kurtz, briefly dealt with one of my favorite organizations, the Television Critics Association. In Los Angeles, Kurtz had a lengthy interview with ...

Image via Wikipedia Harry Smith, a humorist? Who knew? Smith, the former CBS News anchor-reporter (see right), made his debut on NBC Thursday night with an amusing piece on the “Nightly News with Brian Williams” on President Obama turning 50. Williams introduced the four-minute light feature as ...

According to the latest Nielsen ratings, Western New Yorkers seem to religiously avoid watching the local religious channel WNYB-TV in prime time. It averaged one-tenth of a rating point in July of 2010 in prime time, equivalent to about 600 homes. And this July, it didn’t register a rating at all. But ...

Image via Wikipedia Notes before I head back home from a brief vacation: * Three cheers for the idea of a “Friday Night Lights” movie. Reports that a movie starring Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton is in the works and could be ready by 2013 surfaced from the Television Critics Association meetings ...

Image via Wikipedia This is what I’m thinking: * Channel 4 newcomers formerly known as the Kiddie Corps are getting mixed results on weekends from local TV viewers. You could even blame the station’s decision to showcase Nalina Shapiro, Anthony Congi, Bryan Shaw, Rachel Kingston and Amelia Segal ...