After a couple days of public negotiating, the deal was announced late Friday, giving two more seasons – the 24th and 25th – to network TV's longest-running scripted prime-time show, "The Simpsons."
In its announcement of the deal, Fox "quoted" Homer as saying, "Woo Hoo! I outlasted Andy Rooney!"
Rooney gave his final regular "60 Minutes" commentary a couple Sundays ago.
As is often the case, all the issues bandied about while the talks were going on with the actors who voice the characters have dissipated. The talk of opening up cable and the internet to "Simpsons," said the be key potential moneymakers for the franchise, were among those issues.
Money was everything, and The Hollywood Reporter says the actors didn't have to take 45 percent pay cuts to keep the show going.
Ignore that Netflix breakup: Netflix, which has been shooting itself in the foot for months now, has backed off on plans to split up its online and snail mail businesses. That means no separate "Qwikster" for the old-fashioned DVDs, and only one website for both.
That announced split-up angered even more Netflix users than had been incensed by a plan to raise rates substantially for the service.
On TV: CBS' "How to Be a Gentleman" has been pulled from the Thursday night schedule and production has been stopped, with "Rules of Engagement" coming back Oct. 20 to fill the hole. It's the fourth cancellation of the new season.
- The death watch is on for ABC's "Charlie's Angels," which is losing key viewers weekly.
- Tonight's "Monday Night Football" will be opened in a video segment by Barry Sanders now that ESPN has parted ways with Hank Williams Jr. after his comments comparing the president to Adolf Hitler. The Detroit Lions legend tweeted: "OK, I admit it. I will be at MNF this week and doing the intro."
- Meanwhile, Williams is starting his media counter-attack on ABC's "The View"at 10 a.m. Tuesday on Channel 12.
- One of the next big gambles of the Oprah Winfrey Network, Rosie O'Donnell's new daily talk show, launches today at 6 (it'll be live), followed at 7 by "Oprah's Lifeclass" – which looks like a repackaging of old shows with little new content.
- Fox has ordered a ninth season of "So You Think You Can Dance."
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell goes over the line: Liberal commentator Lawrence O'Donnell pushed and pushed last week in an interview with Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain on Cain's lack of participation in the 1960s Civil Rights movement.
And he's taking justifiable heat for his performance.
Here's the video (with the key section starting around 9:20 into it:
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.
