FishbowlDC: Greta Van Susteren is probably not going to see Louis CK’s standup anytime soon.
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Who knew there was a pre-Easter rush? Michael’s dining room was jam packed today with moguls (Donald Trump!), fashion mavens (Rachel Roy, Fern Mallis) and talking heads (Star Jones, Wendy Williams and Joe Kernen) before the town car set jets off to Florida and other more exotic ports of call for the holiday. We arrived early so as not to miss a minute of the mixing and mingling of the power lunch scene and were glad we did. Trump made quite an entrance with his bodyguard in tow. The last time we spotted anyone with protection stationed inside the restaurant was when Elton John met with some bigwigs at Table One several years back. Life can be so complicated when you have money.
I was joined today by Kathryn Leigh Scott, who starred in one of my favorite television shows of all time, Dark Shadows. If you grew up in the 60′s, then you — or someone you knew – probably ran home after school in time to catch the iconic gothic soap opera which aired on WABC at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Kathryn played Maggie Evans and Josette DuPres who was the ill-fated lady love of Barnabas Collins, one of television’s most famous vampires memorably depicted by Jonathan Frid. She also starred opposite Jonathan in the hit MGM film House of Dark Shadows (soon to be re-released on DVD and BlueRay).
Well, everything old is new again and next month Tim Burton‘s big screen homage to the show, Dark Shadows, starring super fan Johnny Depp hits theaters May 11. Kathryn, Jonathan as well as her former castmates Lara Parker (the original Angelique) and David Selby (Quentin Collins) have cameos in the film. “Lara and I plan to walk the red carpet together at the Los Angeles premiere wearing age-appropriate gowns and have a glass of champagne. This is really something to celebrate,” said Kathryn who has high hopes for the film. “It has all the elements the show had (fantasy, horror, romance and comedy), but it’s their playground with their own spin on things.”
The timing of the film couldn’t be better for Kathryn’s new book, Dark Shadows Return to Collinwood which has just come out to rave reviews. Designed by Cheryl Carrington, the book contains hundreds of rare photos from the show, as well as stunning images from the new film.
Kathryn told me she is “so grateful to Warner Brothers and to Tim Burton and Johnny Depp” for their “huge trust in me.” The movie studio released the images from the film to her before they’d finished their own trailer or movie poster and did not ask for approval over their usage. The photos of Depp in full Barnabas regalia standing alongside the original cast members is really something to see, and Kathryn’s behind the scenes account of the experience of being in Burton’s film make the book a must-have for fans both old and new.
Over 200 fans turned out last night at Barnes & Noble on 86th Street to meet Kathryn, get their books signed, and talk about the show and the upcoming film. They also got a surprise gift of posters from the new movie provided by Warner Brothers. “It was wonderful because it was a real mix of people,” she told me. “There were young fans who were excited to learn more about the show, and there were some of the longtime fans who were children when they stood outside the stage door of the show here in New York in the 60s. The legacy of Dark Shadows lives on!”
Here’s the rundown on today’s crowd:
Even though lists like Forbes’ 100 Most Powerful Women are essentially meaningless, the people included are usually worth noting, so they do serve a little purpose. This latest ranking from Forbes does a good job of picking women with real influence and bringing attention to those that don’t get enough credit.
Take the most powerful woman: Angela Merkel (right), the Chancellor of Germany. Her name might not ring a bell, but it should. There are a few more slightly obscure names in the list and some fairly obvious ones as well (Hillary Clinton checks in at number two).
We know — you want to hear who was the highest ranking New York media woman. We’ll give you one guess. If you’re thinking Sally Jessy Raphael, you’re creative, but wrong. It’s Jill Abramson, the new Executive Editor at The New York Times. She ranks eighth on the list.
Check out a few notable media names from the Most Powerful Women list after the jump.
Another Monday, another weekend media feud to report. This time it’s between Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren and blogul Dan Abrams, who owns Mediaite and its related sites, including our personal favorite, Mogulite.
On Saturday, Van Susteren took to her blog to complain about the fact that she and Fox News had covered a serious, important story about how North Korea is about to run out of food in June, but when Mediaite covered her report, they focused only on how many viewers they had. This was their “silly” headline: “Among Viewers 25-54, Van Susteren Leads Cooper By Just 63,000 Viewers At 10 P.M.”
Van Susteren starts out by saying she’s upset that Mediaite chose this trivial angle to report on, and not the real North Korea story. But her point gets lost because she then seems more upset that Mediaite didn’t choose to report more flattering numbers:
I figure the website hates Fox since, although equally trivial when millions are dying, mediaite.com chose not to highlight that 1.6 TOTAL watched our broadcast
If the number of people who watched is so trivial compared to the story, Van Susteren, why keep quibbling over it? Moreover, Mediaite is a website devoted to reporting ratings. Comparing ratings between networks is their beat! They never purported to be a general news site. The whole thing is sort of maddening.
Abrams posted an annoyed response:
I was struck by the hypocrisy of your post. When you and Fox News crow about your own ratings do you put an asterisk when the ratings skyrocket for something trivial like the national obsession with Natalie Holloway? Of course not. What if during that same period, CNN is covering stories of far greater national significance?
Sarah Palin, who rocketed to fame after being unable to form a single coherent answer during an interview with Katie Couric, had a similar moment after the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
At the MSNBC after party, NBC’s blog NBCU Direct asked several famous attendees the following question: “Who do you think is the most influential journalist today?”
This actually turned out to be an amazing question choice. Some had answers right off the top of their head: Eliot Spitzer confidently chose Brian Williams, based on his viewership, followed by Jon Stewart. SNL’s Bill Hader got credit for choosing a non-TV personality, The New Yorker‘s David Grann. But others struggled to even come up with a name (or seemed reluctant to name someone other than themselves, like Bret Baier).
Sarah Palin, well, she was one of the people who struggled. When asked she responded, “Oh my goodness, that’s a great question!” with excessive brightness, before asking her husband Todd Palin what he thought.
Todd had nothing
Palin returned, “Um, gosh, that’s a great question, I have to think about it, OK? Because there are many.”
At that moment she walked up to Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, with whom she was attending the MSNBC party, and then turned back to the NBC cameras and shouted: “Greta Van Susteren!”
Video is below the jump.
Hmm, not even Barack Obama‘s election and the new “civility” at the White House can knock Sarah Palin out of the headlines. She did her first post-election interview with Fox’s Greta Van Susteren last night and appeared again with Matt Lauer this morning. Below she chats with GVS about that clothing purchase (it was “for eight people not one”), also the Africa thing “never happened.” We’ll add in Lauer after the jump when it comes online.
LOLCats take the MPA by storm
Much like Magazine Publishers of America’s Magabrand confab in Florida last October, the morning program at today’s MPA Digital Conference was heavy on the “you should be doing this already, you entrenched print industry.” Only this time, it was social networking and user-generated content freaking out the magazine folk: You’ve got to be making widgets to disseminate your content on all the social networking sites — Facebook, MySpace and infinite others. You should be shooting Web video everywhere your outlet goes, making producers of your reporters, editors, and other content pros whose under-the-radar days are numbered. You ought to let actual programming professionals, rather than your big mag brand’s inferior IT team build your apps quicker, for a cut of what little money widgets’ll make you, all so you can fan content out further than ever — and, by the way, for free. What does it take to ease the pain of all this about-face from older models of producing and publishing magazine matter? Why, LOLCats, of course!
For a couple hours, the back room at Michael’s was transformed into a television news executive bender, a happy hour in honor of our outgoing TVNewser, Brian Stelter [right], and incoming TVNewser, er, ‘Newsers: Chris Ariens, Diane Clehane, Alissa Kinsky and Philadelphia Inquirer TV columnist and Katie Couric nemesis Gail Shister.
Some of those who showed to fete Stelter and co.: Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, NBC News president Steve Capus, Joe Scarborough, MSNBC anchors Contessa Brewer (ED NOTE: Brewer has yet to visit Dan Abrams‘ party house in the Hamptons) and Amy Robach, Rita Cosby, Gil “Stanley Bing” Schwartz, CBS’ Jeff Greenfield, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin and business correspondent Ali Velshi, MSNBC producer Tammy Haddad, NY1′s Pat Kiernan, former CBS honcho Andrew Heyward, BusinessWeek columnist (and husband to our multimillionaire boss) Jon Fine, Jeff Jarvis, CNN anchor John Roberts, Page Six‘s Corynne Steindler, well-rested Observer columnist Michael Calderone, CNBC senior VP Jonathan Wald, Inside Edition‘s Sarah Rubenstein, Radar‘s Jeff Bercovici, HuffPo’s Rachel Sklar (whose date for the evening was 19-year-old CBS News intern Eric Kuhn), Broadcasting & Cable‘s Max Robins and Caroline Palmer (who, Robins says, is leaving B&C to become Vogue‘s Web editor), CNBC VP Josh Howard, Good Day New York host Ron Corning, Freud Communications’ Lisa Dallos, Marketwatch’s Jon Friedman and the omnipresent Julia Allison, who said she had been up since 5:00AM talking about Lindsay Lohan. Her take: “She should just kill herself already, before she kills someone else.”
Notable no-shows: Abrams, Katie, Charlie, Greta Van Susteren, Jon Stewart and Stelter supporter and former CNNer Aaron Brown.
EARLIER:
In its burgeoning war of words with Anderson Cooper, Fox News is pulling out the verbal equivalent of a nuclear warhead: Paris Hilton.
After Anderson Cooper slammed Fox News for its loose journalism in covering the Barack Obama school story on the air, FNC spokesman Irena Briganti responded, calling Cooper’s move “yet another cry for attention by the Paris Hilton of television news, Anderson Cooper.” Fox is now running a print ad with the Paris crack, and talking about the ad on the air.
CNN’s response?
Roger is apparently spinning out of control over the ratings. Before Anderson Cooper took over the 10pm time slot Fox News had a 174% lead in the demo (Aug. 05). Now it is a mere 21% in Jan. 07. As usual, Fox can’t get the facts quite right. Anderson just beat Greta Thursday night. CNN says Anderson beat Greta 40 times in the demo last year, and three times in January. CNN also points to awards — A Peabody, DuPont, and three Emmys for 360 in 2006. Greta Van Susteren? Zero.
EARLIER:
Chris O'Shea
Senior Editor
Alexander C. Kaufman
Contributor
Diane Clehane
"Lunch" Columnist
Nadine Cheung
Editor, The Job Post
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