WORLD CELEBRITIES NEWS. Cont'd.
Trump's Apprentice a success for NBC
Network was worried about its Thursday lineup
NEW
YORK (AP) -- If Regis Philbin once "saved" ABC, Donald Trump has certain
bragging rights at NBC. In two months, The Apprentice has made a huge
difference on Thursday nights for NBC, an evening the network was worried
about because of the impending conclusion of Friends. Last week was typical:
The Apprentice was No. 6 in weekly prime-time ratings, with 19.2 million
viewers, despite competing against television's most popular program, CSI:
Crime Scene Investigation. By running The Apprentice for a full hour and
moving Will & Grace to 8:30, it enables NBC to avoid its oft-repeated problem
of putting two struggling comedies on the Thursday schedule. Partly as a
result, NBC has been able to win or stay competitive among viewers aged 18 to
49. For the full week, American Idol pushed Fox to first over NBC in that
demographic. NBC will still have to deal with a Thursday night without Friends
next season, but Trump has made that prospect less scary. NBC has already
locked up Trump to appear in two more seasons. In what passes for an average
week in TV viewing, the networks stacked up in their common pecking order: CBS
in first, averaging 12 million viewers (7.8 rating, 13 share). NBC was next
with 10.2 million (6.9, 11), Fox had 9.5 million (5.9, 10) and ABC 7.7 million
(5.1, 8). A ratings point represents 1,084,000 households, or one per cent of
the estimated 108.4 million TV homes in the United States. The share is the
percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show. For the week of March
8-14, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: CSI: Crime Scene
Investigation, CBS, 27.4 million; American Idol (Tuesday), Fox, 24.6 million;
Survivor: All-Stars, CBS, 22.6 million; American Idol (Wednesday), Fox, 22
million; Without a Trace, CBS, 19.7 million; The Apprentice, NBC, 19.2
million; Everybody Loves Raymond, CBS, 16.7 million; Friends, NBC, 16.6
million; Cold Case, CBS, 15.9 million; Will & Grace, NBC, 15.6 million. -D.
Bauer.
Joan Crawford's rollercoaster life
Hollywood legend Joan Crawford, born 100 years ago on
Tuesday, was an iconic figure whose rollercoaster career on screen was
mirrored by an equally turbulent life off it.
The
Oscar-winning actress spent 50 years in front of the camera, repeatedly
falling out of favour with the public only to continually reclaim the
spotlight. If her films did not get her noticed, her tumultuous love life and
bitter feuds with her Tinseltown contemporaries did.
Big break
Born Lucille Fay LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas, the young
Crawford was the product of a broken home who knew three different fathers
before she was 16 years old. Growing up in near poverty, she set her heart on
a career in showbusiness as a way to escape a life of drudgery. Beginning as a
chorus line dancer, she moved to Hollywood in 1925 and soon became an MGM
contract player. MGM sponsored a competition to find her a new name,
reportedly because studio head Louis B Mayer thought "LeSueur" sounded like
"sewer".
The article continues on the following page.