Do you have high definition television yet? If yes, do you love it? If no, what are you waiting for?

Now that HBO has cancelled the ill-fated John from Cincinnati, will David Milch return to work on Deadwood and deliver on the promise of two Deadwood movies? Cast your vote by commenting and voting at www.jackmyers.com.

My colleague Ed Martin, in his commentaries this week, asked "Will ABC's delightful Pushing Daisies live up to its strong summer buzz? Is NBC's charming Chuck a keeper? Does CBS' daringly different Viva Laughlin stand a chance? Has Fox found a comedy winner in Back to You? And what about Reaper? Could this new supernatural comedy-thriller on The CW be the surprise hit of the fall season?"

YouTube, with millions of single-click unlinked video fragments, is not the future of broadband entertainment. iTunes, with a closed business model focused exclusively on selling iPods, also is not the future. The future, says PodShow CEO Ron Bloom and his partner, original MTV VJ Adam Curry, is "serialized episodic content that bridges the gap between TV networks and YouTube. On-demand content delivered fresh to audiences who are waiting for it is the new model."

Congratulations to Rupert Murdocha nd to News Corp on the acquisition of Dow Jones & Company and its flagship brand, The Wall Street Journal. And thank you, Rupert.

Plus I Ask the Question: If it was a dog vs. dog world, would the fighting end?

What is the news during a week when there is no major news? What occupies the TV tabloids, the late night talk hosts, and the major news programs? Do you ever feel like we all sit on the edge of our lounge chairs just waiting for the next news shoe to drop? When the east side of Manhattan implodes, is there a collective sigh of relief in newsrooms? "Thank God! There's a story!" When it turns out to be a steam pipe explosion, can you almost sense shoulders slumping as news producers realize the story has no legs?

HBO's Big Love is my favorite series on television this summer. Tell me your favorite summer TV series and why you love it by adding your comment to this blog.

Although I love FX's Rescue Me, and there are excellent series on several other networks, including Monk on USA, The Closer on TNT and Army Wives on Lifetime, plus Entourage and Flight of the Conchords on HBO, Big Love has emerged from a shaky first season to become worthy of the HBO tradition.

At a bar in downtown Havana, Cuba on a recent weekend, on a lone and outdated television set images of locally edited news updates flickered. Scattered among the locals were several Mexican businessmen, a few Canadian tourists, and a handful of Americans. One American in particular, hungry for baseball scores from home and curious about the presentation of news in Castro's Cuba, settled in for a local beer and an hour of dedicated viewing.

The sound was down and there were to be no baseball updates. Soccer was the big sports story with updates on the Cuba vs. Mexico match and player injuries. There was a story about Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, several stories of local interest only, but virtually nothing of international note except for one story that dominated the hour. It was constantly repeated, capturing a full 25 percent of the total news hour.

It was the story of Paris Hilton. Repeated scenes of Paris Hilton leaving prison, getting into a car, traveling through traffic and emerging again. Each time it came on, those gathered at the bar would glance at the television, watch transfixed for a few moments, and then return to their conversations and drinks. It was the same story, repeated over, and over, and over, and over again.

While Studio 60 had its problems, it remained one of the last true politically relevant series on network television. Only ABC's Boston Legal surpasses it in quality narrative writing with historical relevance and perspective. These series rank among only a handful of legendary politically, socially and culturally relevant series. Edward R. Murrow; All in the Family; That Was the Week That Was; Rowan & Martin's Laugh In; Ed Sullivan; Jack Paar; Bob Hope. Hill St. Blues, Law & Order, West Wing. Each era has its few series that served as spokesmen for commentary on the state of the nation.

This week, the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals overruled the Federal Communications Commission decision that Fox was guilty of indecency for the utterance of two expletives in live programming.

The Center for Creative Voices in Media applauded the ruling, commenting "these overly broad and arbitrary Commission decisions put creative, challenging, controversial, non-homogenized broadcast television programming at risk. In many cases, the very kinds of television programs that parents want their children to watch - high quality documentaries, histories, and dramas - were affected."

This week Bill Gates and Steve Jobs joined hands on stage at the Wall Street Journal's annual conference. The Bancroft family announced it was willing to at least meet with Rupert Murdoch, and most observers expect it to lead ultimately to a deal. The New York Post relegated the Bush administration's embrace of environmental policies to page eight while devoting the first three pages of today's issue to Alex Rodriguez' fling (a story with a good long tail). Ex-Wal-mart executive Julie Roehm is back in the news with tales of inappropriate behavior by senior Wal-mart executives, with the Post again out-in-front on the story. And speaking of the Yankees, New Yorkers are being forced to confront the pending demise of Joe Torre and the error of allowing Willie Randolph to move across town. It seems inevitable that Don Mattingly, Joe Girardi or Bucky Dent will soon be taking over the manager's role unless a winning streak materializes.

Question of the Week: Should the broadcast network Upfront presentations offer more sizzling entertainment qualities to go along with the hard programming facts?

Almost anyone interested in primetime television has been hit over the head this week with daily coverage of the networks' plans for the Fall season. Industry insiders who attended the annual network "Upfront" events noted a few prominent themes: very few new sitcoms; procedural crime shows are on their way out; and the events themselves were notable for being shorter than ever and lacking any "show biz glitz" and entertainment power. (The exceptions were Univision and The CW. Read below for details.) ]]> http://blogs.mediavillage.com/jack/archives/2007/05/upfront_present.html http://blogs.mediavillage.com/jack/archives/2007/05/upfront_present.html Television Fri, 18 May 2007 13:24:17 -0300