When Tiger Woods attempted to rehab his image with a Nike commercial that used audio clips of his dead father, he earned the Insider title "Worst Celebrity of the Day." After the ink was barely dry on Larry King's divorce papers, the show's Chris Jacobs weighed in on who should get the kids. "If you can't lift your kids, you shouldn't have full custody," he said. "Larry is an old guy!"
Wow. It's a far cry from the days when entertainment news shows tossed softballs to celebrities plugging their new projects. The genre is more and more turning to the kind of finger-pointing debate that has long been a staple of political news shows on cable networks like Fox News and MSNBC. Even when a Kardashian or one of the Real Housewives sits on the Insider panel, she is asked to declare, "What side are you on?"
Cable network HLN's Showbiz Tonight was the first to push an opinionated approach when it started billing itself as "the most provocative entertainment news show." Executive producer Dave Levine says he relied less on celebrity interviews and more on journalists and in-studio experts to riff on the hot topics. In 2009, the show had its best ratings in its five-year history.
According to Levine, most celeb-news-hungry viewers are getting the latest juicy details about Sandra and Jesse or Charlie and Brooke online. So when they watch TV coverage, they want talking heads to mix it up and to express their own views through online polls. "These are the kind of stories that people are passionate about," he says. "It engages viewers." Levine points out that the rise of TMZ, first as a stalkerazzi website and now a snark-filled syndicated show, has also pushed other entertainment news programs into taking an opinionated edge: "They have upped the ante."
Access Hollywood executive producer Rob Silverstein says his decision to let Billy Bush and the show's other anchors debate stories (in a segment called "AH Nation") instead of just read them off a TelePrompTer has helped reverse his show's three-year ratings slide. "We've done some testing, and it's the most popular part of our show," he says. This fall, the segment will be expanded into an entire live hour program called Access Hollywood Live, airing on several NBC stations.
There are risks to adding spicy commentary to the showbiz news mix. Levine, who also oversees the entertainment coverage for HLN parent network CNN, says some Hollywood publicists have pulled CNN crews from red-carpet events when unhappy with what they've heard about their clients on Showbiz Tonight. "It's a balancing act," he says. But it's clear which way the scales have tipped.
Wow. It's a far cry from the days when entertainment news shows tossed softballs to celebrities plugging their new projects. The genre is more and more turning to the kind of finger-pointing debate that has long been a staple of political news shows on cable networks like Fox News and MSNBC. Even when a Kardashian or one of the Real Housewives sits on the Insider panel, she is asked to declare, "What side are you on?"
Cable network HLN's Showbiz Tonight was the first to push an opinionated approach when it started billing itself as "the most provocative entertainment news show." Executive producer Dave Levine says he relied less on celebrity interviews and more on journalists and in-studio experts to riff on the hot topics. In 2009, the show had its best ratings in its five-year history.
According to Levine, most celeb-news-hungry viewers are getting the latest juicy details about Sandra and Jesse or Charlie and Brooke online. So when they watch TV coverage, they want talking heads to mix it up and to express their own views through online polls. "These are the kind of stories that people are passionate about," he says. "It engages viewers." Levine points out that the rise of TMZ, first as a stalkerazzi website and now a snark-filled syndicated show, has also pushed other entertainment news programs into taking an opinionated edge: "They have upped the ante."
Access Hollywood executive producer Rob Silverstein says his decision to let Billy Bush and the show's other anchors debate stories (in a segment called "AH Nation") instead of just read them off a TelePrompTer has helped reverse his show's three-year ratings slide. "We've done some testing, and it's the most popular part of our show," he says. This fall, the segment will be expanded into an entire live hour program called Access Hollywood Live, airing on several NBC stations.
There are risks to adding spicy commentary to the showbiz news mix. Levine, who also oversees the entertainment coverage for HLN parent network CNN, says some Hollywood publicists have pulled CNN crews from red-carpet events when unhappy with what they've heard about their clients on Showbiz Tonight. "It's a balancing act," he says. But it's clear which way the scales have tipped.
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