- John Stoehr
Arts Editor
There's more to art than you think. It's not just theater, paintings, books and dance. It's the enterprise of human creativity and it takes vastly different shapes and forms. Here you'll find my thoughts about the arts in Charleston and beyond. Neither of us knows what to expect.
Category Archives: Television
When kings drop their pants
July 21, 2008 – 7:51 am
A performance of King Lear by Ian McKellen, 69, caught the attention of Paula Kerger, PBS President and CEO, who scheduled it for broadcast this season. The only problem is whether the Federal Communications Commission will penalize PBS for allowing McKellen’s character to shed his clothing along with his sanity. Kerger suggested the play be […]
Hottie Search
July 21, 2008 – 7:49 am
The new ABC reality show Great American Beauty is searching for gorgeous men and women between the ages of 18 and 30 to participate in a competition to find the most beautiful person in America. So, if you’ve got striking facial features, long legs, and a six-pack, the casting call will take place at 11 […]
The new average age of TV viewers
July 6, 2008 – 4:26 pm
The paradigm seems to be shifting, according to a new study reported in Variety on June 29. In it, researchers found the median age of viewers of broadcast TV is now 50. ABC, NBC, and Fox have grown older while CBS has remained the same, still attracting the older viewers. In order, from the oldest […]
Hollywood Slugger
July 6, 2008 – 4:24 pm
Eye for an Eye with Judge “Extreme” Akim Anastopoulo will serve justice in the Charleston area Aug. 4-9. By then, his company, Atlas Worldwide Syndications and Distributions, Inc., will have completed construction of a facility in Hollywood, S.C., which Anastopoulo, who wields a baseball bat during the show with the word “justice” on it, says […]
And the nation’s worst TV news station is . . .
June 12, 2008 – 9:58 am
In Savannah.
As the lowest-rated ABC affiliate in the nation, news station WJCL was chosen to be part of a reality TV series that shows how the underdog cast and crew of WJCL imitate the little engine that could as they do the best work possible for their unpopular station. The series began last night at […]
Army Wives has started filming again
March 27, 2008 – 8:40 am
A new production of Army Wives was underway yesterday at the College of Charleston. Rob Young of the Post and Courier reports today that the the Cistern, Addlestone Library and its courtyard were used as backdrops, and even college students are going to be extras. Lifetime Television closed down production during the three-month writers strike, […]
Reality TV and the Irony of Choice
December 14, 2007 – 10:16 am
If you don’t like reality shows, don’t turn on your TV next year.
The big four broadcast networks are running out of new scripts because of the ongoing strike by the Writers Guild of America. By January, the number of reality-based television shows, which do not require writers represented by the guild, will jump about 50 […]
Paul Potts: Hero of opera
November 2, 2007 – 3:17 pm
Arts organizations are always talking about how to cultivate new audiences. A tried-and-true strategy has been the Theory of Exposure: Get the art in front of people, especially youngsters, and they will acquire a taste for the art.
That kind of thinking has been around at least since The Muppet Show first aired in the late […]
Celebrity the way it used to be
July 6, 2007 – 12:00 pm
American opera legend Beverly Sills died last week at 78. Readers of a certain age don’t have the slightest clue who she is, of course — they’re fixated on the modern variety of celebrity, the Parises and Anna Nicoles who are famous for nothing more than being attractive, completely talentless, and very, very wealthy. But […]
Mika Brzezinski bitch-slaps Paris
June 29, 2007 – 4:09 pm
Sick to death of the way the mainstream media is reporting on Paris as if there were no other earthshaking tragedies occurring in the world? So is MSNBC anchor Mika Brzezinski, apparently. This is priceless.
