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Fourth of July Marathons 2013
Once again, it’s Fourth of July weekend. While some people will be heading off to the beach or going to a barbeque, others will be curled up on their couch watching one of these marathons.
July 3
A&E : THE FIRST 48 (3 – 7pm), DUCK DYNASTY(7pm- 4am)
AMC: CSI: MIAMI (4 – 8pm)
bio: THE FIRST 48 (7pm- 3am)
Bravo: MILLION DOLLAR LISTING NEW YORK (4 – 8:45pm)
Cloo: HOUSE (8am – 1am)
CMT: REBA (5 – 8pm)
Discovery: DUAL SURVIVAL (5 – 9pm), NAKED AND AFRAID (9pm- 1pm)
Discovery Fit & Health: THE LITTLE COUPLE (7pm – 2am)
Disney XD: KICKIN’ IT (9pm – Midnight)
DIY: DESPERATE LANDSCAPES (8pm – 4am)
Food Network: RESTAURANT: IMPOSSIBLE (7 – 10pm)
GSN: FAMILY FEUD (6pm – Midnight)
Hallmark: LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE (5 – 8pm)
HGTV: BUYING AND SELLING Marathon (1 – 8pm)
History: THE MEN WHO BUILT AMERICA (4pm – 4am)
ION: FLASHPOINT (9pm – 3am)
Logo: NIP/TUCK (7pm – 1am)
Military: THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR (7pm – 6am)
MTV2: ROB DYRDEK’S FANTASY FACTORY (9pm – Midnight)
Nick at Nite: FULL HOUSE (8pm – Midnight)
NickToons: THE FAIRLY ODDPARENTS (9pm – Midnight)
nuvoTV: THE SHIELD (8pm – 2am)
OWN : LOVE THY NEIGHBOR (7pm – 2am)
ReelzChannel: BEVERLY HILLS PAWN (9pm – 3am)
Smithsonian: AERIAL AMERICA (Midnight – 6am)
Spike: COPS (5 – 8pm)
Style: THE MILLIONAIRE MATCHMAKER (8am – 3am)
TNT: CASTLE (4 – 9pm)
truTV: HARDCORE PAWN (7pm – 4am)
TV Land: M*A*S*H (5 – 8pm)
USA: NCIS (8am – Midnight)
WE: PREGNANT & DATING (Midnight – 5am)
DirecTV and Viacom Reach an Agreement
DirecTV customers will get back the 17 Viacom channels that they lost during the 10-day standoff between the two companies. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed. However, the deal gives DirecTV subscribers the ability to see Viacom programming on various electronic devices via the DirecTV Everywhere platform. It also includes an option for DirecTV to carry Viacom’s premium movie channel EPIX.
Viacom Stops Free Streaming of Its Shows
The fight between Viacom and DirecTV has officially affected everyone. Since DirecTV decided to direct their customers who want to watch Viacom shows to their corresponding websites, Viacom has decided to pull full episodes of The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, SpongeBob Squarepants, iCarly, Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, and more. However, full episodes do remain on Hulu.
Fourth of July Marathons
Fourth of July Marathons are ubiquitous with the holiday, which is why every network appears to have one.
Here is a long, yet still incomplete list of marathons sorted alphabetically by show.
America’s Funniest Home Videos (11am-11pm, ABC Family)
America’s Got Talent (9am-5pm, Oxygen)
American Greed (11am-6pm, CNBC)
Cajun Pawn Stars (7pm-3am, History)
Criminal Minds (8am-5pm, A&E)
Dancing With the Stars (8am-2pm, GSN)
MTV Goes Retro
No, MTV hasn’t had a change of heart and decided to play music videos all day. However, MTV has announced its new “Retro Mania” block. The block, which will air weekdays from 9am to 12pm, will start on June 25 and will run until August 3.
The full schedule is:
June 25 – June 29: Laguna Beach (Seasons 1 and 2)
July 2 – July 27: The Hills (Seasons 1 – 6)
July 30 – August 3: Daria (MTV’s favorite episodes from the series)
After seeing the list, it looks like MTV has no idea what is considered retro. If MTV really wanted to go retro, it would have put Remote Control and old seasons of The Real World.
What shows would you like to see on MTV’s Retro Mania block?
I would like to see 2ge+her, which was about a fictional boy band, and the aforementioned Remote Control.
Charlie Sheen Stars in Anger Management Promos
You’ve probably heard that Charlie Sheen is coming back to television with Anger Management, which is based on the movie of the same name. Yesterday, FX released six commercials, each one featuring a punchline from the show. However, they are not really funny because the promos at 10 to 20 seconds each don’t provide any context for the joke.
The first commercial is the longest and doesn’t actually have anything to do with the show, except for the fact that it stars Charlie Sheen as Charlie Sheen. At least he gets in a good, albeit overused, joke in at the end.
Reviewing TBS’s Men at Work
TBS is one of my favorite channels, but it’s one of the last places I would think of to have a quality first-run show. I’ll watch endless reruns of Friends or Seinfeld, but that’s what TBS is best at: reruns. Though, when I saw so many ads for Men at Work during multiple two hour marathons of Friends, I wanted to give it a chance. I have been a fan of Breckin Meyer ever since I saw him star in Rat Race in 2001, so I was curious about how well he would do as a showrunner. I’ve also been a fan of Danny Masterson for a while. I knew this new role wouldn’t be as enjoyable as when he was Hyde in That 70s Show, but I still wanted him to succeed.
The style of the show wasn’t going to suit me, since I have an aversion to multi-camera shows with a laugh track. While there are a few notable exceptions, the overwhelmingly deliberate delivery of punchline and prompting for the viewer to laugh turns me off. Also, the camera set up seems to compromise individual character focus. The premise of this show was respectable, but not very unique. Four men living, working and dating in New York. The series opened with two episodes on Thursday night, and while I chuckled a few times during both of them, I wasn’t impressed.
Logopalooza: Lifetime Edition
On May 2, Lifetime introduced a new yin yang logo with the tagline “Your life. Your time.”
In a press release, Lifetime’s Senior Vice President of Marketing Time Nolan said, “Great experiences build successful brands. Expanding on Lifetime’s 28 year legacy, our vision balances the equity the network built while breathing new life into the viewers’ experience. This new logo marks the next step with a distinctive new look and attitude. Embracing everything we love about life, Lifetime strives to be as brash as it is honest and always entertaining.”
While I applaud Lifetime for taking more steps away from its former image as the channel with movies about battered women, my initial reaction to the logo was that it would not seem out of place on a feminine hygiene product and seemed borderline ridiculous. The pink yin yang would fit perfectly on a package of Poise, which was probably not what the Lifetime executives intentions. As I thought more about the logo, I realized that Lifetime was probably going for the balance between work and having a family, the yin and yang in a woman’s life. The problem is that a network logo should not require someone to analyze and get existential.
I prefer the old logo because it did not have an unnecessary symbol and got straight to the point in feminine script. You knew you were watching Lifetime. There was no glancing at a irrelevant symbol before you read the print underneath it. The channel name was the logo.
My dislike of the new logo definitely has a lot to do with the fact that it is new. Since 1995, Lifetime’s logo has deviated little until the most recent change, so I grew up with one variation of the above logo or another gracing the lower right-hand corner of my television screen. Maybe the pink yin yang will become Lifetime’s thing, an iconic logo for an iconic network. The yin yang may end up like the NBC peacock, forever associated with a network despite having nothing to do with the content of what the network airs.
What to know what more of Lifetime’s former logos look like? Business Insider takes a trip down memory lane with this slideshow.
Wait! What's A Dial? 