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BROADCAST/CABLE by Marauder

BROADCAST/CABLE

ABC announced the fifth season premiere of Lost will open January 21 at 9p with two back-to-back episodes preceded by a Lost recap show airing at 8p. For this new season, Lost can be found on Wednesdays at 9p where Private Practice currently resides, instead of Thursdays at 10p. ABC has not said where Private Practice will relocate, although the network just granted the medical drama a full-season order. ABC is expected to make more changes to its Wednesday primetime schedule as Pushing Daisies at 8p and Dirty Sexy Money at 10p have both underperformed in their time periods thus far this season. (Cynopsis 11/10)

NBC continues to resuscitate the drama Life as the network gave Universal Media Studios approval on the back nine episodes giving the series a full-season order. Recently, Life was moved off of Friday nights to Wednesdays at 9p where last week it averaged a 2.0/5 and 5.9 million viewers among A18-49, doing better than its lead-in show Knight Rider which posted a 1.6/4 and 5.1 million viewers with A18-49. (Cynopsis 11/10)

The CW and Warner Bros. Television halted plans to further develop The Graysons, a put pilot commitment granted in early October about the life of Dick “DJ” Grayson aka Robin before he became Batman’s sidekick, reports Variety. Apparently, Jeff Robinov, President of Warner Bros. Pictures Group decided against the project, even though The CW was hoping it would replace Smallville once that series ends. According to studio executives, Warner Bros. Television has other show replacement options in the works for The CW. (Cynopsis 11/10)

Barack Obama wasn’t the only big winner on Election Night: Cable news channels attracted 79 million viewers Nov. 4, compared with 59 million in 2004, according to Nielsen. CNN was the No. 1 cable net that night, with 13.1 million, just 100,000 viewers behind overall TV winner ABC and a good deal ahead of CBS and its 7.8 million. Advertising Age (11/10)

Despite the fragile economy, Discovery Communications remains optimistic about advertising revenue through the fourth quarter. Late last week, the cable programmer said that ad revenue was up 4.6% year-over-year in the third quarter and that profit was $134 million on overall revenue of $845 million. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) (11/8)

DirecTV reported slowing subscriber growth during Q3 adding 156,000 net households compared to 240,000 a year earlier when the company’s reselling arrangement with AT&T was still in place. DirecTV’s total subscribers reached 17.32 million overall. U.S. revenues increased 11% to $4.32 billion due to strong Ave. Revenue Per Unit (ARPU) growth and the larger subscriber base as more subscribers took advanced services. (Cynopsis 11/10)

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