It takes a good ‘Deal’ more to topple ‘Idol’
What’s the “Deal” with Howie?
Howie Mandel was supposed to help save fourth-ranked NBC this winter with his prime-time game show, “Deal or No Deal.” So as President Bush might say ... what the heck happened?
“Deal” settled into a very distant second place Wednesday night behind week No. 2 of the guys’ singing on Fox’s “American Idol” (see? we told you Bucky Covington is good). OK, so no one expected Howie to take down Simon Cowell. Still ... the NBC game show rounded up an average of 10.6 million total viewers, according to early figures from Nielsen Media Research, compared with 29.2 million for the 90-minute “Idol.”
True, going head-to-head with “Idol” amounts to a death wish for any show. But the outlook for “Deal” looks a lot different than it did last fall, when buzz and ratings for the show were building; it finished on Dec. 21 with 14.1 million total viewers.
Ah, well. Howie can always do Vegas. As for NBC, which just tanked with the season five premiere of Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice,” well, maybe things will work out with Dick Wolf’s new fountain-of-youth-seeking crime soap, “Conviction.”
Is Lou losing it?
We know it’s a cliche to compare a raving TV newsman to Peter Finch in “Network,” but Wednesday on CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” the hot-headed host inched perilously close to a Chayefsky-style meltdown while rending his garments over the U.S. ports controversy. When Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told viewers the company that tried to buy the Long Beach port operation back in 1998 was actually owned by China, Lou’s boiler room exploded:
Dobbs: Don’t tell me that, Mr. Chairman. You’re not suggesting that COSCO is owned by the communist Chinese government.
Hunter: Absolutely.
Dobbs: I am shocked. I am shocked. Can I ask you a question? ... Let me ask you a question. I’m laughing, because I am so mad. Or I’m going to cry.... The fact of the matter is, this has been a process of selling off U.S. key strategic assets including port facilities for years.... And we call this a superpower and this government, this administration, is talking about the strength of free trade, so-called, and the strength of this country in the fight against the global war on terror. Mr. Chairman, how in the world does that make any sense at all?
The funny thing is, Hunter and Dobbs seem to be in agreement on the ports issue, although you wouldn’t have known it from the newsman’s raised voice, not to mention his conflicted impulses regarding laughter, tears and anger (anyone can scream at a foe, but it takes real talent to have a shouting match with an ally).
Dobbs, of course, has been banging his anti-offshoring kettledrum in a fairly successful bid to improve ratings. But CNN says the newsman deserves credit for being among the first to see the ports controversy as a significant story.
Read the latest Channel Island post at latimes.com/channelisland. Reach Scott Collins at channelislandlatimes.com
