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"Big Brother" being prepped for spring
2007-11-07 22:40:00
Variety reported Tuesday that CBS summer reality series "Big Brother " may return early this spring to fill out a schedule hit by the ongoing writers' strike. The trade publication suggests that the next "Big Brother" may be a celebrity version. The major problem is that with many celebrities sympathetic to the striking writers, few viable ones would want to associate with a "Big Brother" run intended as a network strike-breaker. ----"Big Brother" would fill at least three hours per week for the network, joining "Survivor," "Power of 10" and other new reality and game show projects on the CBS spring schedule. "The Amazing Race" ironically enough would be left out of any strike-breaking role this spring, saving us from at least that moral dilemma. Under current planning, "The Amazing Race 12" airing should last until late January or early February with a potential TAR13 unavailable until summer at the earliest.
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TAR12 audience confirmed as premiere record
2007-11-06 22:36:00
The final Nielsen ratings for "The Amazing Race 12 " debut indicates that it achieved the largest audience ever (13.7 million, adjusted downward from 13.8) for a premiere episode of the series. TAR12 also achieved the race's largest premiere demo rating (4.3, adjusted upward from 4.2) among age 18-49 viewers since "The Amazing Race 8" a.k.a. Family Edition."The Amazing Race 12" opener finished in 17th place for overall audience among all prime-time programs this past week, an excellent result.----Obviously, this past Sunday night's ratings are the equivalent of a track and field athlete setting a best ever time with the aid of a strong wind. The Patriots/Colts football supermatch won't be around in subsequent weeks to aid the series. Hopefully though, the positive feedback received thus far though is an indication that a significant portion of the initial audience will stick around for those future episodes. If that happens, a TAR13 would seem assured. Relevant links: CBS via The ...
More About: Premiere , Record , Audience , Remi

META: Apologies for the delays
2007-11-06 20:07:00
In a comedy of bad timing award, yesterday was the worst possible case of it as both this site and this blogger got sick at about the same time. My own health is better today and I've made adjustments to get the TARbloob site back up to a more normal condition as well. More posts will be upcoming over the next several days to make up for the delays.I apologize for the inconvenience.
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CBS: TAR reaches record debut viewership
2007-11-06 02:24:00
Excerpted from CBSPressExpress.com:The 12th edition of THE AMAZING RACE left the starting gate with 13.8 million viewers, the largest premiere audience ever for the five time Emmy Award-winning reality show, according to Nielsen preliminary live plus same day ratings for Sunday, Nov. 4.At 8:30 PM, the season premiere of THE AMAZING RACE 12 (8.5/13, 13.82m) averaged a 5.2/11 in adults 25-54 and 4.2/09 in adults 18-49. Compared to the fall 2006 premiere of THE AMAZING RACE 10 (on 9/17/06), CBS was up +35% in households (from 6.3/10), +13% in adults 25-54 (from 4.6/10), +8% in adults 18-49 (from 3.9/09) and added +3.69m viewers (from 10.13m, +36%). If the ratings hold, this is the best delivery ever for a first episode of any season of THE AMAZING RACE in both households and viewers and the best delivery in both adults 18-49 and adults 25-54 since THE AMAZING RACE 8's Sept. 27, 2005 premiere.
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TAR12 debut draw strong football-aided rating
2007-11-05 20:29:00
"The Amazing Race 12" drew a very strong viewer sampling for its debut, aided in large measure by a massive football spillover.The opening TAR12 debut drew an approximate 4.2 Nielsen demo rating among age 18-49 viewers, above all episodes of All-Stars and the vast majority of TAR10 airings in the Sunday slot. An estimated 13.8 million overall viewers watched last night's delayed telecast, a number beyond any level in recent memory.Even considering the strong lead-in off the football-boosted "60 Minutes" (5.0 demo, 18.8 million viewers), the fact that "The Amazing Race" held as much of the ad-friendly audience that it did is some credit to the program itself. As "Viva Laughlin" itself demonstrated just two-plus weeks ago, even the best lead-ins in the world can't help a program that can't help itself. ----All that said, CBS clearly achieved its objective of using its megahyped battle of undefeated football teams to draw viewers into "The Amazing Race 12." One of the problems with...
More About: Football , Strong , Draw , Debut , R 12

CBS Elimination Station, video online
2007-11-05 14:19:00
CBS.com has finally posted video content for "The Amazing Race 12 " including its own pre-race interviews with the eleven race teams. The online CBS.com program "Elimination Station ," a look at the teams as they are gathered in sequesterville after race elimination, has also returned complete with first race eliminatees Ari and Staella. The eliminated teams are being gathered in Portugal.
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Writers' strike on after talks collapse
2007-11-05 11:59:00
The Writers Guild of America went on strike today against television and movie producers after last minute talks to resolve the issue dissolved.The talks had actually made some progress until after midnight Eastern time Monday when the WGA East branch refused to "stop the clock" and formally went out on strike. The East coast walkout infuriated producers' representatives, causing the collapse of talks where it was still Sunday on the West coast. At this point, the Writers Guild of America (both East and West coasts) are on strike. The dispute will leave the reality genre untouched but will by steps force the shutdown of most other television programming starting today with the late-night talk shows.Relevant links: Deadline Hollywood Daily, Variety
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Ari & Staella results compilation
2007-11-05 05:05:00
RELATIONSHIP: Best friendsLeg #1 result: 11TH place out of 11 (Clifden, Ireland) ELIMINATED
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Nathan & Jennifer results compilation
2007-11-05 05:04:00
RELATIONSHIP: DatingLeg #1 result: 10TH place out of 11 (Clifden, Ireland)
More About: Results , Jennifer , Compilation , Nathan

TK & Rachel results compilation
2007-11-05 05:02:00
RELATIONSHIP: Newly datingLeg #1 result: 3RD place out of 11 (Clifden, Ireland)
More About: Results , Rachel , Compilation

Kynt & Vyxsin results compilation
2007-11-05 05:01:00
RELATIONSHIP: Dating gothsLeg #1 result: 2ND place out of 11 (Clifden, Ireland)
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Azaria & Hendekea results compilation
2007-11-05 05:00:00
RELATIONSHIP: Brother/sisterLeg #1 result: 1ST* place out of 11 (Clifden, Ireland)* - won resort vacation to Alberta, Canada
More About: Results , Compilation

Kate & Pat results compilation
2007-11-05 04:18:00
RELATIONSHIP: Married ministersLeg #1 result: 8TH place out of 11 (Clifden, Ireland)
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Marianna & Julia results compilation
2007-11-05 04:14:00
RELATIONSHIP: SistersLeg #1 result: 9TH place out of 11 (Clifden, Ireland)
More About: Results , Julia , Compilation , Maria

Ronald & Christina results compilation
2007-11-05 04:13:00
RELATIONSHIP: Father/daughterLeg #1 result: 7TH place out of 11 (Clifden, Ireland)
More About: Results , Compilation , Christina , Ronald

Shana & Jennifer results compilation
2007-11-05 04:12:00
RELATIONSHIP: FriendsLeg #1 result: 6TH place out of 11 (Clifden, Ireland)
More About: Results , Jennifer , Compilation , Hana

Nicolas & Donald results compilation
2007-11-05 04:10:00
RELATIONSHIP: Grandson/grandfatherLeg #1 result: 5TH place out of 11 (Clifden, Ireland)
More About: Results , Donald , Compilation , Nicolas , Nico

TAR 12.1: Ari & Staella eliminated
2007-11-05 04:01:00
My initial recaplette and thoughts for the first episode of "The Amazing Race 12 ."The usual rush of the race was inspiring as always. What wasn't as inspiring was the apparent one lane exit out of Los Angeles' Playboy Mansion resulting in a vehicular traffic jam before anyone even left the property. FYI, when exactly did the Playboy Mansion become mainstream, anyway?The luck of the race was evident early on as groups of mostly Los Angeles area residents led by daters Lorena and Jason navigated the area freeways to make the first British Airways flight out. A flight delay on arrival though cause the second Air Lingus flight to actually reach destination Shannon, Ireland minutes ahead of the first flight.----Both more experienced dating couples had their struggles. Daters Lorena and Jason briefly led but then Jason drove the team the wrong way to a destination, severely upsetting Lorena. The pair eventually pulled over for instructions which verified Lorena's point. Jason still bla...
More About: R 12 , Mina

TAR 12.1 results
2007-11-05 03:01:00
The following are results for the first leg of "The Amazing Race 12."(START: Playboy Mansion, Los Angeles)(PIT STOP: Connemara Heritage Centre, Ireland)----1) Azaria & Hendekea (brother/sister) - won Alberta, Canada resort vacation2) Kynt & Vyxsin (goth couple)3) TK & Rachel (new daters)4) Lorena & Jason (daters)5) Nicolas & Donald (grandson/grandfather)6) Shana & Jennifer (friends)7) Ronald & Christina (father/daughter)8) Kate & Pat (married ministers)9) Marianna & Julia (sisters)10) Nathan & Jennifer (daters)11) Ari & Staella (best friends)- ELIMINATED
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27 minute delay in Eastern/Central U.S..
2007-11-05 01:02:00
"The Amazing Race 12" will premiere tonight at 8:27 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and 7:27 Central Standard Time in the United States due to the CBS football overrun.The Mountain, Pacific and other time zones of the United States will see "The Amazing Race 12" on time. Viewers in Canada and other countries will also see the TAR12 premiere on-time.
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"The Amazing Race 12" premieres tonight
2007-11-04 20:14:00
Just weeks after its premiere was still set for 2008, the wait for "The Amazing Race 12" premiere will instead end this night of November 4, 2007. The ludicrous "Viva Laughlin" is left as a shattered memory with CBS now counting on "The Amazing Race " to help restore ratings sanity to its Sunday night lineup.CBS hopes to hook viewers into TAR12 right away with promotional help from the afternoon's megahyped Patriots/Colts NFL matchup, largely expected to draw the largest NFL regular season audience in recent memory.----What "Amazing Race" fans and football fans alike will hopefully find tonight is an edition infused by youth and stripped of extraneous ga-ga. "The Amazing Race" teams will again be new while the frustrating non-elimination legs will be gone. The course for the TAR12 run is promised as tougher and more exotic than any in memory. The ability of "The Amazing Race" to revive its audience for this run and getrenewed for the next one largely depends on the shows' ability t...
More About: Tonight , Premieres

TAR 12.0: Azaria and Hendekea
2007-11-04 20:07:00
The final team to be covered in my initial thoughts posts, siblings Azaria and Hendekea, presents me with the same problem as the first team... hopelessly unusual names designed to trip up my spell-check. I live in a majority African-American county but have never heard of either one of those first names.My struggles in spelling the names Azaria and Hendekea notwithstanding, the team does set up initially as formidable opposition. The brother and sister carry intelligence as their main asset. With both siblings working as engineers, problem solving tasks might prove elementary to them. Azaria at least is also strongly physically and with manual tasks, though he claims that his sister can be "dainty" to use his word. Daintiness is clearly no help on the race but the trait can been overcome, as already proven by TAR All-Stars champions Eric and Danielle. Azaria is also racing to represent the still recovering post-Katrina New Orleans, a kind of pressure that I don't wish on any racer...
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TAR 12.0: Lorena and Jason
2007-11-04 18:45:00
Racers Loren a and Jason come in as a long-time set of daters but perhaps the set with the most tumultuous situation.Jennifer and Nathan's past now exists as Lorena and Jason's present with a pair that's become disconnected with each other and increasingly struggling to function as a couple. For such a team, the question of whether the relationship can remain intact may supersede even the question of winning or losing the race itself. On paper, Lorena and Jason have some skills that they can bring to the table. Lorena has extensive foreign language skill that is seemingly unmatched by any other racer. The pair is self-described as being a very physical team, a good qualification to succeed on TAR12's rough sojourn.----It's the mental state of these two together that is the serious question. Work schedules had largely drawn the two apart. With the race clock replacing the employment clocks during the race, Lorena and Jason could regain the spark that brought them together. That'...
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TAR 12.0: Nathan and Jennifer
2007-11-04 17:37:00
Without any alpha male super-athletic teams on the show this season, daters Jennifer and Nathan should serve as the next best thing. (Yes, I am irritated that there are two racers with the same name on this show. That should make my recap posts really fun.) The Long Beach-based daters figure to be the alpha male/female team of the season based on athleticism alone. With a physically strenuous course on the horizon, the volleyball backgrounds of the pair figure to work to a significant advantage. The pair believes in "karma" according to their BuddyTV interview and wish to be nice to everyone until the final few legs, should they advance so far. Somehow I'm guessing that the karma-mocking Ari and Staella won't be their best friends from the experience. Aside from dealing with those two twits, the strategy is a sound one. The key for TAR is to survive the early legs, then win at the end. ---While the physical advantage is obviously theirs though, there are disadvantages with the cou...

TAR 12.0: Nicolas and Donald
2007-11-04 17:09:00
TAR12 racers Nico las and Donald represent a most unique pairing, a grandson/grandfather team. That particular dynamic is untested on "The Amazing Race," whether they can hold up as a race team on a purely physical basis is even more unclear.Donald comes in as a 68-year-old grandfather, a racer with an extremely long age for this kind of endeavor. As someone who considers himself a jack-of-all-trades, he may be a racer who thinks he knows best when his son may actually be the one with true expertise. Such a conflict over leadership roles can be fatal for a team with no margin already for error.While Donald's expertise may be an exaggeration in his own mind, he does recognize the obviously physical difficulty of doing TAR at his age. Clearly, the team will not be able to match up muscle for muscle against other teams. Donald can't be twenty-one again but what he can do is boost his condition to the point that it doesn't automatically knock his team out of contention.----The racing ...

TAR 12.0: Ronald and Christina
2007-11-04 16:16:00
TARbloob is already in the corner of wanting father/daughter team Ronald and Christina to do well on TAR12 for no other reason than the fact that the daughter happens to live in my own Washington, D.C. area. Both team members actually lived originally in Washington state, where Ronald still resides.These Washingtonians (either definition of Washington can apply) carry built in work ethic that seems to have eluded some of the other TAR12 teams. Both members are intelligent and well-traveled, both obvious advantages when working through tasks on "The Amazing Race."Christina's residual diplomatic skill from her work with the State Department can help in building alliances with other teams or in making connections with locals.To their credit, Ronald and Christina studied past runs of the program to look for any legitimate advantages without stepping outside of their good-natured personalities. That's the best to approach the program for this team or most others.----All that said, the ...
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What slot for a midseason airing?
2007-05-17 02:37:00
----As a midseason show, the eventual timeslot for "The Amazing Race 12" remains as of yet undetermined.An obvious possibility would be for CBS to place TAR12 in the Thursday 8 p.m. slot between the next two "Survivor" cycles, a plan that would essentially turn the slot into a year-round wheel o'reality. It seems to me though that if CBS wanted to spell a successful show like "Survivor," such a plan could have been announced already.It's more likely that "The Amazing Race 12" will instead air in a slot to be vacated by a new fall show. Early possibilities would include going right back to the Sunday 8 p.m. slot if the risky "Viva Laughlin" fails, Tuesdays at 10 p.m. if drama "Cane" falters or Wednesdays at 8 p.m. when "Kid Nation" ends its initial run. "The Amazing Race 9" was slotted in both the Tuesday and Wednesday slots during its ratings-challenged airing. The one wild card is the possibility of a writers' strike against scripted programming. In that event, multiple potentia...
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Not criticizing the kids of "Kid Nation"
2007-05-17 02:05:00
----The second most notable reality show on the CBS fall 2007 schedule turns out not to be "The Amazing Race" but instead a new entry into the field called "Kid Nation ." The already taped reality series will feature kids essentially setting up their own mini-society devoid of adults, a take compared in the mainstream press to the infamous "Lord of the Flies" novel. There is already some controversy over the concept but the barrier of using kids (without an adult presence) in a reality show format was already crossed long ago, just on shows outside of broadcast network prime-time. If anything, the non-competition format described for "Kid Nation" seems innocuous by comparison to those earlier entries.----The concept of using kids for a reality show with a primarily adult audience is more the frustrating one for this blogger. Adult reality show contestants fully consent to having their lives become open books during their stints on such programs, subject to praise and criticism from a...
More About: Kids , The Kids , The Kid , Crit

The meaning of a midseason TAR12
2007-05-16 19:50:00
----The renewal of "The Amazing Race" for a 12th run is unquestionably a good thing, considering some of the dire possibilities that had been tossed about over the past few weeks. Whether the delay in the run's airing from fall 2007 to likely winter or spring 2008 is a good thing stands unknown.----With the exceptions of "American Idol," "24," and "Lost," broadcast networks generally try to get their stronger products on their respective fall schedules. Their weaker shows are generally held for midseason outings. It may be that CBS simply does not consider "The Amazing Race" to have sufficient mainstream strength to remain a key player for the network.What may be taken as a demotion though could stand instead as a chance for revitalization. Overexposure of "The Amazing Race" series with two runs every calendar year has allowed for a certain fatigue or sense of sameness to set in among some TAR fans. The extended break may allow the series to return refreshed for those fans, much as...
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"The Amazing Race 12" to air midseason
2007-05-16 15:57:00
----As anticipated, "The Amazing Race 12" will not be on the CBS fall schedule but will instead air later in the so-called midseason.New musical drama series "Viva Laughlin" will take the CBS Sunday 8 p.m. slot this fall.Two CBS reality shows will air this fall: "Survivor" in its usual Thursday 8 p.m. slot and new series "Kid Nation" to air in the Wednesday 8 p.m. slot.----
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