The year is winding down, and the usual flood of TV news is starting to slow down to a trickle.
Before it dries up completely, here are some tidbits that might be of interest.
First, there's the annual Marist Poll of Americans' Christmas TV favorites, which measures what we like to watch at this time of the year.
Movie-wise, "It's A Wonderful Life" is the favorite of 24 percent, with "A Christmas Story" close behind at 23 percent, and "Miracle on 34th Street" at 22 percent. "A Christmas Carol" is the favorite of 13 percent, "White Christmas" has 13 percent and 5 percent are unsure.
Among animated specials, "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" are tied with 26 percent each. "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" got 25 percent. "Frosty the Snowman" is the favorite of 9 percent and "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" has 8 percent. Another 5 percent are unsure.
Speaking of "It's a Wonderful Life," which gets its second NBC airing of the season at 7 p.m. Friday on Channel 4, former President George H.W. Bush has recorded a description of the movie that will be simulcast on the Second Audio Program of NBC's broadcast.
It's an effort by RP International, a non-profit group helping people with visual impairments, to make the Christmas classic more accessible.
You can access the Second Audio Program on your TV remote.
Then, there are the final numbers on Sunday night's disappointing Packers-Patriots game. NBC quotes Nielsen Media Research numbers showing that 24.2 million people watched the Packers lose.
That's the fourth most-watched "Sunday Night Football" game of this season.
Brett Favre's Oct. 24 return to Lambeau Field pulled in nearly 27 million viewers -- making it the second-biggest audience this season for a Sunday night NBC game.
Speaking of football, Fox is experimenting with a musical soundtrack to its NFL game coverage -- with a possibility that you could hear that on the Super Bowl.
Here's an example:
Meanwhile, Nielsen has some new numbers out suggesting that DVR users aren't skipping over the commercials when they watch a show.
The study says 38 percent of American homes have a DVR. In those DVR homes, commercial ratings are higher among 18- to 49-year-old viewers, by 44 percent after three days.
DVR households watch more prime-time programming than non-DVR households, and 49 percent of time-shifted prime-time shows are played back the day it was recorded. A total of 88 percent is played back.
On TV: CBS has released its midseason schedule information, including a twist in the next edition of "Survivor," which will allow eliminated cast members to get back into the competition. "Survivor: Redemption Island" starts Feb. 16 in the 7 p.m. Wednesday slot. "Blue Bloods" is moving temporarily to 9 p.m. Wednesdays, starting Jan. 19. "The Defenders" is headed to Friday nights.
- TCM salutes the late director Blake Edwards with five films on Monday night. "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1961) airs at 7 p.m., followed at 9 by 1962's "Days of Wine and Roses." "The Pink Panther (1964) airs at 11, followed by 1982's "Victor/Victoria" at 1 a.m., and 1959's "Operation Petticoat" at 3:30 a.m.
- FX is bringing back "Justified" for another season starting Feb. 9.
- Playbill.com reports that HBO will film Broadway's "Pee-wee Herman Show" to air on the premium channel. That comes nearly 30 years after HBO introduced Paul Reubens' Pee-wee to the nation in a 1981 special.
And then there's "American Idol": With the first Simon Cowell-less season of "American Idol" less than a month away, Fox has released a 22-minute documentary on the previous nine "Idol" winners:
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.
