TV World Cup soccer provides a welcome diversion from the tacky departures of Star Jones, Dan Rather and Connie Chung.
I’m fighting jet lag while carefully absorbing (read: deleting) 21 electronic pages of mail, mostly from publicists, about shows whose use-by date expired with the milk in the refrigerator.
Vacation is over. Here’s a belated postcard.
The hot media news while I was away in Italy, it appears, was a series of celebrity send-offs. The biggest circus involved the departure of Star Jones Reynolds from “The View.” The media obsession in Italy during the same period was the World Cup. Between the two, only one brought screaming fans into the streets.
The American media were transfixed by the psychodrama between Jones Reynolds and Barbara Walters. The whole mess revealed what happens when TV professionals go off-script and say what they’re really feeling. Nobody ever claimed Jones Reynolds was a dignified presence. She’s infamous for having parts of her wedding gift bags contributed by sponsors in exchange for on-air plugs. She’s ridiculous when it comes to diet advice in spite of gastric bypass surgery (which she can’t quite admit). She’s a mess. In the end, though, it was bigger news that the supposedly stately Walters dissed Jones Reynolds.
“The View” has gotten more than its share of publicity lately – when Meredith Viera was tapped to take Katie Couric’s spot on “Today” – and will get more when Rosie O’Donnell joins the group in September. Oprah Winfrey’s high-profile pal Gayle King is said to be a likely contender for Jones Reynolds’ slot.
Soccer was a terrific diversion from this sort of low-level gossip. Restaurants from Rome to Tuscany had large-screen TVs set up to accommodate diners during the games. Rejoicing was loud and long. Let’s see, I could spend the next week surfing the Internet to catch up on the late-night comedy gags devoted to the Jones Reynolds exit. Or I could return to my regularly scheduled program.
Also while I was away, America witnessed the unceremonious dumping of Dan Rather by CBS, an outrage, really, when you consider that Rather was the embodiment of that network for decades. Now the news division can’t remember his name. Oh, and there’s no room for him on “60 Minutes” because Couric and Anderson Cooper will be supplying stories. Yes, Rather is a strange guy, but they could have finessed a better send-off.
151,116. That’s the number of times the insane Connie Chung “Thanks for the Memories” video send-off had been viewed on YouTube.com by the time I got home. Many more than that saw her on MSNBC. Really, it couldn’t have been any goofier if Maury Povich had worn the elbow-length white gloves and form-fitting gown. The former newswoman’s performance is the year’s most lavish public meltdown. But it’s only July.
A sadder sign-off was the death of megaproducer Aaron Spelling, a television impresario whose range is noteworthy. Most people think of “Dynasty,” “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Melrose Place” when they hear his name. They think of his wealth and outsize mansion. But in addition to a lot of what he called “mind candy,” he oversaw some critically praised works. “Family,” “7th Heaven” and the film “And the Band Played On” were also Spelling productions. (The family feud perpetuated by daughter Tori following his June 23 death is the stuff of one of Spelling’s tackier series.)
While I was unplugged – honestly, I only cheated and glimpsed a few minutes of English-language CNN – my publisher got some good news. The Federal Communications Commission voted in June to revisit the topic of media ownership, this time with an eye toward loosening some rules. For the first time since 1975, a newspaper is likely to be allowed to buy a TV station in the same city, even the most popular television station in town. The Internet has changed everything since the FCC last weighed in on who could own what.
Denver Post owner William Dean Singleton often expresses his intention to add TV and radio properties to his portfolio in markets where he already has newspapers. He now has more markets to juggle.
Coming up: Katie Couric launches a national “listening tour” July 13 in Denver, not unlike Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s New York state campaign meetings with “regular folks.” It’s closed to reporters.
Happy Fourth.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-820-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
