CBS is scaling back the sixth season of its long-running crime drama, "Numbers." Or, as the network annoyingly calls it, "Numb3rs."
The normal 22-episode run has been cut back to 16 episodes, a strong sign that this will be the last season for the show that airs in the 9 p.m. Friday slot on Channel 58, and stars Rob Morrow.
CBS is one of the few spots where 9 p.m. Friday isn't automatically a death slot. Its audience tends to be older than the other networks, and more of those older viewers tend to watch on Friday, generally a night with low viewership.
Michael Ausiello is reporting at Entertainment Weekly that a number of other CBS shows are getting additional episodes, including Monday night sitcoms "How I Met Your Mother," "Two and a Half Men," and "The Big Bang Theory."
The first two would have their run for the season upped to 24 episodes, with "Bang" getting one more episode, for 23.
An Internet radio and TV collection: The Wisconsin Broadcasters Association has launched an on-line Wisconsin Museum of Broadcasting with what's hoped to be an expanding collection of audio and video from radio and TV outlets across the state.
On radio: Milwaukee radio has mercifully spared us another record year of early Christmas music -- which is something of a gift itself. Who's going to take the plunge first is a closely-guarded secret, but if you need an injection of holiday music right now, Time Warner Cable's Music Choice, available on digital cable, already has non-stop Christmas tunes on Channel 933.
- WLWK-FM (94.5) owes some of its early success to the fact that when it launched a year ago as music-heavy "Lake FM," two stations were in all-Christmas mode. Lake FM celebrates its one-year anniversary Friday with an event it's calling a "Shareholders Meeting." Listeners won tickets for the evening event at Discovery World's Pilot House Room.
- National Public Radio is looking for the "50 Great Voices" in recorded history for on-air/on-line programming beginning in January. Listeners can pick five favorites from among 100 nominated artists in Internet voting that runs through Nov. 16.
- Fans of former WMYX-FM (99.1) morning host Jane Matenaer should be able to catch a glimpse at 9 a.m. Friday on Channel 4's "Morning Blend," where she's scheduled to talk about her new comedy, "Morgue Lady," which debuts Saturday as part of the Racine Theater Guild's "Comedy Tonight" performances.
A news guy tries comedy: If you've ever heard NBC's Brian Williams chatting in a less-than-serious interview, you know he can be a pretty funny guy. His comedy chops are tested tonight at 8:30 on Channel 4 when he plays himself on "30 Rock," auditioning for the open slot on the show's fictional "TGS."
It's not his first visit to "30 Rock," and it's not without precedent. Walter Cronkite dropped by CBS' "Mary Tyler Moore Show" back in the 1970s when a network anchor was a much bigger deal.
But is there anything questionable about NBC's top news anchor trying his hand at sitcomedy?
Video from his "audition" follows below.
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
