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Posts Tagged ‘television’

Walter Cronkite is Dead

7:35 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities| Media| society · Comments Off

17 Jul 2009

It’s the end of an era, folks. I’m not old enough to have experienced Walter Cronkite as a young journalist, but in his last years in the profession he was a staple in the early lives of our generation, who grew up with Cronkite as a pre-cable news icon of TV journalism trustworthiness. Before CNN, there was network news, and at CBS, Cronkite was king.

Walter Cronkite, an iconic CBS News journalist who defined the role of anchorman for a generation of television viewers, died Friday at the age of 92, his family said.

Mr. Cronkite anchored the “CBS Evening News” from 1962 to 1981, at a time when television became the dominant medium of the United States. He figuratively held the hand of the American public during the civil rights movement, the space race, the Vietnam war, and the impeachment of Richard Nixon. During his tenure, network newscasts were expanded to 30 minutes from 15.

“It is impossible to imagine CBS News, journalism or indeed America without Walter Cronkite,” Sean McManus, the president of CBS News, said in a statement. “More than just the best and most trusted anchor in history, he guided America through our crises, tragedies and also our victories and greatest moments.”

Mr. McManus added: “No matter what the news event was, Walter was always the consummate professional with an un-paralleled sense of compassion, integrity, humanity, warmth, and occasionally even humor. There will never be another figure in American history who will hold the position Walter held in our minds, our hearts and on the television. We were blessed to have this man in our lives and words cannot describe how much he will be missed by those of us at CBS News and by all of America.”

R.I.P. Walter. A real reporter.

Via / NYT

Paquito Cordero is Dead

4:52 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities| Media| Puerto Rico| TV · Comments Off

2 Jul 2009

Puerto Rico lost a television pioneer this past Tuesday, when Paquito Cordero passed on at the age of 77. The Puerto Rican government has declared 3 days of mourning for Cordero. EFE reports:

“The people of Puerto Rico start the day in mourning for the sad loss of one of the greats among our artists and a man of the people,” Fortuño said in a press release.

Francisco Cordero was born in 1932 in San Juan’s Santurce neighborhood, and after attending the Central Upper School, began his artistic career as an actor when television arrived in Puerto Rico in 1954 on the program “Mapy y Papi,” together with his aunt Mapy Cortes (1910-1998).

His greatest legacy as a producer was the program “El Show de las 12” (12 O’clock Show) for Telemundo Channel 2, which aired at midday.

The program was transmitted for the first time on Jan. 11, 1965.

In addition to his work as a producer and comedian, Cordero is often credited with the international success of Menudo.

Via / Latin American Herald Tribune

George Lopez Goes Late Night

11:48 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities| TV · 4 Comments

25 Mar 2009

georgelopeztp At a time when late night talk shows are in a period of transition — what some might call a renaissance — a familiar Latino face is emerging to shake up the genre even more. George Lopez is getting his own late night talk show, which is set to air on TBS and seems to be much more than just a monologue and a guy behind a desk:

Lopez and his producers approached TBS with a pilot episode filmed on an outdoor soundstage, with Eva Longoria, Dane Cook and Samuel L. Jackson as guests. Lopez sat audience members close to the stage, let them ask questions and didn’t sit behind a desk.

“The music was from salsa to Led Zeppelin,” he said. “Look, you can either go to Nieman Marcus or you can go to a flea market. When you go to a swap meet, there’s just a ground-level feel that you can find anything there. At Nieman Marcus, you’re not going to find tube socks and pliers. This will be a flea market feel.”
TBS was sold by the pilot, said Michael Wright, the cable network’s programming chief.

I’m not a huge fan of Lopez’s comedy, but I appreciate what he’s trying to do: represent some diversity in late night, so I’ll be watching. I must admit I’m also attracted by what he said he’s shooting for:

He said he wants to be inclusive, not divisive, in much the same way as Arsenio Hall’s early-1990s talk show.

I loved me some Arsenio!

Via / Yahoo Entertainment News

Finally, Spanish-language programming with brains?

6:56 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Marketing| TV · Comments Off

5 Mar 2007

If you’re like me, you watch Spanish-language television but think that most of what’s on it makes you feel like it was created for people who lack brain cells. It seems like the people behind the production fail to realize that their viewers aren’t idiots, and insist on feeding them TV psychics, Mario Almada movies and lots and lots of novelas. I’m not sure if that will change any time soon, but this might be a good sign:

A for-profit venture partnered with public television, V-me (pronounced “veh-meh,” from the Spanish veme, for “see me”) is a 24-hour digital broadcast network carried on basic digital cable and satellite systems. The network will be partners with public TV stations, which will receive V-me at no cost…

Programming features a mix of original productions and acquisitions as well as public television fare adapted for American Latinos, with content organized into four categories: lifestyle, factual, movie/special events, and kids (with V-me devoting 36 hours per week for programming devoted to preschoolers).

Ugly Betty takes home two Golden Globes

6:30 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Events| TV · Comments Off

16 Jan 2007

capt.32314310a0b84b99bba46fa1b747a338.golden_globes_press_room_carg192.jpg Hooray! It’s a landmark moment for Latinos on TV. A show by Latinos, with a Latino cast and a Latino storyline, adapted from a script born in Latin America, has taken the Golden Globe for Best Comedy, with America Ferrera taking home her own for Best Comic Actress on TV.

Betty’s producer, Silvio Horta, got all teary-eyed (and so did I, I confess) when he said that Ugly Betty was an immigrant story and that Betty herself symbolizes the American dream. The immigrant angle, I think, is what has taken an ordinary Cinderella tale and turned it into something meaningful that so many people can relate to.

While Horta gave his speech, Salma Hayek, the show’s star executive producer stood back, and cast member Vanessa Williams jumped up and down and shouted with glee. Horta ended his speech by sending a shout out to his mom: “Te quiero, mami!”

Think you should be on TV? SI!

3:24 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Entertainment| TV · 1 Comment

1 Nov 2006

Think you’re special? Think you could be the next big thing on Latino TV? Well, guess what — SI TV is looking for Latin TV stars for its new show “Flow and Tell”. It looks like they are starting their search in Tucson:

Attention rappers, ranters, poets and just plain folks: Si TV wants to give you an opportunity to go on camera and express your thoughts and opinions for its new series Flow & Tell when the show visits Tucson Thursday. The program will debut on Si TV, an English-language Latino- themed network, in 2007.

The station premieres in Tucson Monday on Comcast Channel 635.
The music video series mixes everyday people’s on-camera thoughts and rants with today’s hottest music videos to create an outlet for self-expression.

Hope to see you on TV!

Via / AP and The Tuscon Citizen

SNL fires Sanz, first Latino cast member

1:56 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities| Chismes| TV · 3 Comments

20 Sep 2006

Saturday Night Live, my on again off again favorite show (currently very off) and one of my favorite cast members (and first Latino on the show), Chileno Horatio Sanz are parting ways. And SNL isn’t just axing Sanz, but two other great cast members, though producers aren’t calling it a firing:

After nearly a month of speculation that the fates of several Saturday Night Live cast members were up in the air comes confirmation from NBC that regulars
Chris Parnell, Horatio Sanz and Finesse Mitchell will not be returning to the late night staple.

The non-announcement was made by simply omitting the players’ names from a press release touting the start of the show’s 32nd season, though a rep for the network denied there was any bad blood between the MIA cast and svengali producer Lorne Michaels or that their departure was the result of a firing.

“I believe there were mutual choices made,” NBC rep Marc Liepis told E! Online. “When you’re on the show for eight years, I don’t think you look at it as a firing.

So because you’ve been on the show a long time it means you aren’t fired when they tell you to hit the road? Interesting.

Via / Yahoo! Entertainment

Colombia gripped by “Without Breasts”

1:27 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Colombia| Entertainment| TV · 1 Comment

19 Sep 2006

In the category of Best Name for a TV Show in the History of the World, the winner is: “Without Breasts There is No Paradise”.

All of Colombia is riveted to what’s being called the most popular telenovela in the country’s history: Sin tetas no hay paraíso, a story (based on a best-selling novel and airing on Colombia’s Canal Caracol) which revolves around the life of a sex worker obsessed with augmenting her breast size, and her relationship with narcotraficantes. But not everyone is happy with the soap.

Its legions of loyalists notwithstanding, many are upset with the show for the image it portrays.

In newspaper columns and radio interviews, feminists and family groups have decried the show’s portrayal of women as a sexist affront, more inclined to satisfy flesh-filled male fantasies than generate meaningful debate about Colombia’s unrivaled obsession with plastic surgery.

AP points out that Colombia leads the world in plastic surgery madness:

Colombia’s passion for implants is almost unmatched. According to the Colombian Society of Plastic Surgeons, more than half of the 450,000 operations performed last year were breast augmentations costing an average $2,000-$3,000 per procedure — more than half a year’s salary for the 58 percent of the country living below the poverty line.

Meanwhile, the mayor of the town where the novela is set is up in arms about the portrayal of the women of the locale, and activists are charging the show’s producers’ of being concerned solely with the high ratings the cleavage featured will earn them.

Via / Yahoo! Entertainment

What would you do?

1:42 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · TV| race · Comments Off

24 Mar 2006

I rarely watch network TV, but last night I was lucky enough to catch a fascinating episode of ABC’s Primetime entitled “What would you do?” ABC conducts experiments to see what people what people would do in certain situations: if they saw a child getting beaten up by other kids in a park, a couple fighting, etc. But I was particularly interested in the segment called “Taxi Cab Slurs”.

The premise is simple: put an actor in taxi cab as the driver and have him go off on a racist tirade to see how the passenger reacts, if at all. All of this is caught on hidden camera, of course.

They started out in New Jersey, where they picked up a business woman who is described as “Puerto Rican”. The driver starts going off on “Arabs” and the woman looks uncomfortable. Slowly she starts to counter his claims saying something like “I don’t agree because that would be prejudice and I am not anywhere close to being prejudiced.” Well, maybe not against middle eastern people, but what about Asians? When given the chance, this “woman of color” starts on Asians and can’t stop. Her prize-winning moment is when, in talking about the way Chinese people drive, she says “You know they can’t see right to left out of their eyes.” Classy.

Reality TV kills

3:54 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · TV| Uruguay · Comments Off

20 Mar 2006

Reality TV — America’s collective crack pipe — can sometimes be unbearable to watch, but who knew that it could also be deadly?

When I occasionally have watched shows like Fear Factor, I always thought “What if someone got seriously injured or killed? How do they protect against this?”

It seems that sometimes these shows are less than vigilant and the unthinkable happens. That’s what happened during the taping of a reality show in Uruguay last week:

A runaway train killed seven people and injured at least 11, severing some of their limbs, during the filming of a TV show in Uruguay, police said.

The accident occurred during a “test of strength” challenge to raise money for a hospital in Young, 380km (235 miles) west of the capital, Montevideo.

Contestants were pushing and pulling a train and two carriages when the vehicle gained speed and ran them over.

Good God. This begs the much asked question “Has reality TV gone too far?” I personally think that the business model of low-production costs for high profits should at the very least take into consideration the safety of the participants.

Via / BBC News

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