There have been dozens of film and TV versions of Treasure Island, but SyFy's production — starring Eddie Izzard as Long John Silver — should be the one by which all others are judged...

2011

Oct

AMERICA LOSES 1.2 MILLION TV HOUSEHOLDS -- BUT WHO'S REALLY LOSING WHAT? By Mike Donovan

I'd say we got trouble, my friend, with a capital T and a capital V and that stands for... you can figure the next part out yourself. For the first time in decades -- actually, the first time ever -- the Nielsen Co. recently announced a decrease in its estimate of the number of U.S. TV Households. This year, Nielsen is estimating that number at 114.7 million households, down from last year's 115.9 million. At the same time, cable companies are seeing a decline in the number of cable subscribe

2011

Mar

CBS'S NEXT MOVE, POST-CHARLIE SHEEN: MY TWO AND A HALF CENTS By Mike Donovan

Recently there have been any number of suggestions on how to save CBS's Two and a Half Men in the wake of the Charlie Sheen meltdown. Replacements for poor Charlie have included, among others, Matt Dillon, John Stamos and Rob Lowe...But I think we could learn from the past that there are other creative solutions...

2011

Jan

CABLE BABIES: THE NEXT GENERATION By Mike Donovan

Many years ago, I wrote an article called "Invasion of the Cable Babies" for a broadcast promotion directors' publication, triggered by my discovery that I was beginning to get students in my TV classes who had cable TV their entire lives. They made no distinction between broadcast and cable. To them, television always meant 50-plus channels, and NBC and USA were just two of the many channels. And today, there's yet another generational viewing shift...

2010

Nov

AND IT'S FREE! By Mike Donovan

For the past several months I've read critics and reviewers writing about how this was maybe the worst new season in broadcast history...You can buy a decent TV for about $500, and it'll last about 10 years. That's about $50 a year. The problem seems to be that people (especially critics and reviewers) expect about $50 a night of entertainment...

2010

Sep

I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE... AFTER I FINISH THIS INAUGURAL COLUMN By Mike Donovan

As a relatively unknown quantity, I thought my inaugural piece should give some indication as to where I'm coming from. To that end -- I believe that television was much better in the '50s. Not programming, television viewing. When there was a single TV in the household, kids were often forced to watch what their parents wanted to watch...

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Mike Donovan

Mike Donovan has been teaching courses about television at Rowan University in New Jersey for almost 40 years. For 20 of those years, he also worked in conference and educational marketing for the National Association of Television Program Executives. He currently also serves as the Educational Director of the NYC-based Charles & Lucille King Family Foundation. He is listed in Who's He in American Colleges and Universities and watches entirely too much television.

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