Time Warner Under the Dome of CBS

Under the Dome on CBS is no longer viewable on demand, online, or on TV in certain markets due to an airing fee dispute.

Like many viewers out there, I have become a big fan of Under the Dome, the shiny new sparkling TV series airing on Monday nights at 10 p.m. on CBS. The show debuted on June 24, 2013, during the off summer season, a brilliant move. It is now rated the number one show nearly each week and boasts viewership from 10 to 14 million each episode. (according to Zap2it)

Under the Dome is a really exciting, unique, and original thriller conceived by popular horror novelist Stephen King about the community of Chester’s Mill, Maine which is mysteriously cut off from the rest of the world when it is encompassed by a 10-mile diameter transparent dome one beautiful sunny morning. The dome allows nothing in, nor out, save for for a little air and moisture. People are trapped inside without extra food or medicine. The doctor was out of town “when the dome came down.” The fire department had left for a parade in a neighboring city. And a few unfortunate visitors happened to be driving through and are now trapped inside, away from their homes and separated from their families, friends, and all their own personal belongings. 

With no cell phones, email, or television signal, Chester’s Mill residents are reduced to scrawling hand written messages and holding them up to show to others outside the transparent sound-proof dome. Lip reading sisters act as interpreters, revealing that the U.S. military is just as in-the-dark as to the cause of the dome as are the residents, and so is the rest of the world. 

Efforts to penetrate the dome with ordinary construction equipment are futile and it's discovered that metal objects touching the dome become electrically charged as if in a microwave, causing them to burn up. The government perceives the dome as a potential threat created by an unknown entity (possibly extraterrestrial) and in episode 5, Blue on Blue, aims a missile at it, exploding a M.O.A.B. (mother of all bombs) in an effort to destroy it. 

Anticipating the complete annihilation of the town of Chester’s Mill and it's inhabitants, the bomb only manages to destroy the surrounding landscape of homes and farmlands into oblivion. (These are miraculously restored in the next episode -- whoops! ) 

Nothing can crack it. Life goes on as best as possible inside the dome.

The CBS dome over Time Warner Cable

I try to watch Under the Dome via on demand each week due to my busy schedule, but was sadly dismayed to discover that CBS has pulled it's on demand viewing menu and blocked online viewing on it's own website due to a failed airing fee negotiation with Time Warner Cable. In an effort to rally support from viewers to call Time Warner at 1-888-TW-Cable and “tell them you want your CBS shows back!,” CBS has initiated its own blackout. 

CBS has created a website explaining their position and attempting to rally support here: KeepCBS.com

Time Warner has created a far more detailed explanation and offered solutions on their website here: Time Warner Conversations.

It's a wee bit complicated. You pay for cable. Your cable company (Time Warner in this instance) pays CBS to air their shows. But, CBS wants more money and claims they are underpaid. Time Warner says essentially: No, you're getting your fair share. So, CBS has cut the feed and Time Warner customers are now experiencing a blackout of sorts. 

Obviously, if you just hook up a good antennae to your TV, you can still watch CBS shows free of charge, which is what many of the 3.5 million paying Time Warner customers in the blackout cities of Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York City, and Pittsburgh are doing. These are the major metropolitan markets where CBS owns and operates the local CBS stations, thereby enabling them the control needed to create the blackout. 

Several channels are affected. In addition to CBS, Time Warner Cable customers can no longer view Flix, The Movie Channel (TCM), Showtime, and the Smithsonian Channel. To appease customers, Time Warner has replaced TCM with Encore, and Showtime with Starz.

I live in Orlando and I don't have Time Warner Cable. I have Bright House Cable. However, Time Warner is leading the negotiations with CBS for both Bright House and Time Warner, so I am also blocked from not only viewing my favorite CBS shows on demand on channel 304, but also from viewing them online via my Bright House internet connection. Fortunately, I can still view shows during their regularly scheduled viewing time slots since WKMG, our local CBS affiliate station, is owned by the Post/Newsweek Corp and will not block out the shows.

While I don't want to harp on this issue, I do feel that as a consumer, it's difficult to take sides in this matter without knowing all the facts. I would love to know what the fees are that Time Warner pays ABC, FOX, and NBC.  Is CBS asking for more money? And if so, why? CBS airs several major sporting events – do they feel that's their big bargaining chip? NBC airs the Olympics every two years and you can't get much bigger than that.

Hit shows come and hit shows go, and I'm all for equality in democracy. All four major networks who air their own original primetime shows from 8 to 11 each night: ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC should get paid the same fee. HBO and Showtime are also equal to each other in my eyes, and should get the same fee as well. If CBS wants more than what NBC is getting, then shame on CBS. If Time Warner wants to pay CBS less than what they are paying NBC, then shame on Time Warner. Just make it equal. Problem solved. If CBS feels they deserve more since they have a few hit shows, can't they simply make up the difference in advertising revenue? Leave us innocent cable customers out of the fight.

But, this blog is supposed to be about Under the Dome, not about a ridiculous behind-the-scenes spat which has affected viewers of all CBS shows, including many of my favorites: the popular Big Bang Theory, Two Broke Girls, and How I Met Your Mother, just to name a few.

Life Under the Dome

Fortunately, I was able to watch the latest episode 7, Imperfect Circles, when it aired this Monday at 10 p.m. on Bright House Cable. However, I've missed the previous episode 6, The Endless Thirst and had to resort to watching an action-figure collecting, computer-repair geek’s online critique on youtube to find out what happened. Apparently, the town’s water tower was knocked down, it rained inside the dome, and the character Rose, who ran the diner, was gunned down and killed by two hooligans, a sad, sad day in Chester’s Mill.

I love the premise of the show. The concept of “what would you do?” if you were suddenly cut off from the rest of society, unable to ship goods inside or out, with limited communication, power, water, food, medicine, and other resources? Especially with no hope in sight, no promise of future interaction, and no promise of anything ever returning to normal. I imagine it must feel a wee bit like those on the U.S.S. Minnow felt after being stranded on Gilligan’s island. At first, you hope for a quick rescue and end to your misery, drinking up all the wine which floats your way. As time passes, you adjust, take inventory, and create new ways to accomplish simple tasks.

I’ve experienced such an event myself on a short-term basis after a two-week power outage here in Orlando back in 2004 after Hurricane Charley swept through Florida, wrecking havoc. We neighbors met on the street, pooled our resources, and formed a cooking-and-entertainment brigade of sorts. One neighbor had a freezer full of thawing meat, so he made us dinner each night. I had a large screened in porch that offered a nice breeze and bug free environment. Another neighbor brought over their furniture, and another their candles. We read books and played canasta. Down the street, we charged our phones and computers at the gas station. We raided the next door neighbors’ orange trees and juiced the oranges to make mimosas.

If we had gone far longer without power and resources and been cut off with no hope in sight, we would have done more, entering unoccupied homes looking for canned goods and toilet paper stashes. 

Even longer, and I imagine creating a co-op exchange of goods and services: hand-me-down clothes in exchange for roof repair, mending in exchange for canned tomatoes. I'm sure we would have scrounged up some seeds and planted some new crops of vegetables. 

The show is based on the book of the same name, Under the Dome by Stephen King, and in it, just as in the adapted TV show, anarchy results, disasters occur, and people are killed. In the book, after a little over a week, the dome is lifted and it is discovered that only 26 people still remain alive. However, this is a television series, and the hope is that it will last a few years as we explore the sociological impacts and scenarios that would develop over the course of several months. Though King wrote the first episode, Producer Brian K. Vaughan has been hired to adapt and modify some characters and scenarios to accommodate the longer timeline.

My largest complaint, as a nerdy geek sci-fi fan are that the fallout from the disasters are magically erased each episode. Giant fires and explosions should be creating great clouds of unbreathable pollution, but are magically dissipated. The fields and homes destroyed by the M.O.A.B. have magically reappeared in the next episode. The dome edge seems to move. 

Before I read the book’s synopsis online (I don't recommend it -– it’s a spoiler), I was intrigued with what on earth could have caused the dome to form. I wondered if it were Eden, and mankind was being given a protective barrier against the rest of humanity in an effort to preserve them from some future cataclysm which would erase mankind from the surface of the earth, leaving only the dome occupants to repopulate the world.  The latest episode, with a black egg-shaped stone at the center emanating the force field, led me to theorize that this is perhaps a giant alien egg, and the people of town of Chester’s Mill have invariably been caught in the wasp’s nest, perhaps to be living food for whatever creature will be hatching from within. 

The true cause of the dome revealed in King’s book is just as exciting. Let’s hope that the dome on CBS and Time Warner and Bright House subscribers is lifted so that the rest of the world can see the show for themselves. Until then, you can watch this nerdy guy Trevor here on youtube for show updates: Trevschan2

To everything, there is a Season: Tweet #savethesingoff

Fans are urged to tweet: #SaveTheSingOff today to attempt to trend it on twitter.

This week of Season finales has drawn an unclear line in the sand between cancellations and new opportunities, unexpectedly intertwining the fates of three of my favorite shows: Live! with Kelly, The Sing-Off, and Two and a Half Men.

LIVE! with Kelly

Ever since Regis Philbin left the cohost position of the LIVE! with Regis and Kelly show on November 18, 2011, TV viewers have enjoyed watching a parade of short-term fill-in guest hosts, everyone from Jerry Seinfeld to Kim Kardashian, and Apolo Anton Ohno to Jim Parsons. The suggestion is that at some point, a permanent host will be chosen from those who have appeared. Facebookers are urged to "like" their favorite hosts on the show's webpage.

I watched a similar parade of female guest hosts test the waters after Kathy Lee left the show in 2000 and a female cohost position was vacated, and I knew instantly that Kelly Ripa was the clearly perfect choice to fill her shoes the moment she appeared. Peppy, silly, comfortable, and wiling to put up with a curmudgeon like Regis, she was the perfect complement. I had watched her debut on "All My Children" and thought this was a much better fit for her. The show has since won a slew of Daytime Emmys and other awards.

Now Regis has left, and the search is on. I have my own personal favorites.

Alec Baldwin, who appeared on Leap Day, February 29, was one of my top picks. He handled the position with panache, taking the good with the bad, not squirming when a slimy giant bullfrog was brought out on stage to leap for Leap Day (he failed to leap and merely sat), interviewing with knowledge and confidence, and even acting out a steamy improv romantic scene with Kelly to illustrate the over-the-top acting required in soap operas. Baldwin is currently a primary player on 30 Rock, but I wonder if he could perhaps be enticed to join Live! instead.

Michael Bublé, who appeared before Christmas on December 15th and 16th also was a huge favorite of mine, though one would not think that a grammy-award winning crooner who's used to singing to entertain could do such a lovely job. He was open and revealing, talking naturally as if he were sitting around chatting with good friends. He made fun of himself, impersonated others while recounting stories, was a willing model during a high tech gift feature, and was truly entertaining during the full show. I apparently am not the only one who's a fan -- he has 1311 likes, more than any other guest host. Perhaps while starting a family, he would be willing to settle down in NYC for a few years and cohost the show.

Finding the next Regis has been a challenge. Kelly is the *nice* one, so adding another pleasantly upbeat host creates an imbalance at the helm. No, Regis's replacement will have to be a little bit mean, have a humongous ego so as to not cower when interviewing the really huge stars, a healthy dose of arrogance combined with an open revealing self-criticism, a ton of previous star knowledge, and a huge heaping helping of true snarkiness. 

For this reason, although I do love his fun attitude, Nick Lachey is not a good fit. He desperately wants the job, and has even gone so far as serenading Kelly proposing that she choose him to be the next co-host …

The Sing-Off

Nick Lachey currently hosts The Sing-Off, an a cappella singing group competition show, featuring groups performing in their pure form, without autotune, choral pedals, or musical instruments. Groups compete and are intelligently judged by Sara Bareilles, Shawn Stockman, and Ben Folds. Sadly, the show is in danger of being cancelled. 

It's not the show's fault that it did not do as well last year during Season 3 as it had in previous years. Last year, the show ran a full fall season, and although I did manage to watch every single episode without fail, I actually enjoyed the show much more in Seasons 1 and 2 when it ran as an off-season filler over the holidays. However, I loved the way it culminated with a Holiday Special in December during Season 3, where Christmasy songs were the ideal fit for pure choral arrangements.

The Sing-Off was also pitted head-to-head against Two and Half Men, debuting the exact same day that Ashton Kutcher was taking over the role of Charlie Sheen after his sensational interview where he claimed to have "tiger blood" and "Adonis DNA" and was fired from the show. I would imagine that even some of the upper management of NBC was tuned to CBS every Monday night at 9 PM out of mere curiosity, instead of watching their own broadcast of the Sing-Off. 

However, host Nick Lachey should relax, because Sing-Off fans, led by a campaign to trend #savethesingoff on twitter today are going to most likely bring the show back for another run. Started by a fan and retweeted by heavy-tweeters @BenFolds, @SaraBareilles, @ShawnStockman, and @NickSLachey, the show has launched a campaign today to bring the show back for Season 4. It's a bit ironic that the Sing-Off is using twitter to achieve this task, since Ashton Kutcher himself is known as the one who made twitter a popular social networking tool in April 2009, by inspiring others to sign up for the service and "follow him" so that he could become the first person to have more than a million followers.

Ben Folds himself has just successfully funded his own new album release for Ben Folds Five, solely utilizing the social media sites of Facebook and twitter to get out the word to pre-purchase Cds, vinyl, and tour t-shirts in the form of pledges. 

Two and a Half Men Spin-Off?

The season finale of Two and a Half Men marked the graduation of Alan's (Jon Cryer)  son, Jake (Angus T. Jones), who had been living rent-free along with his dad, first with Charlie (Charlie Sheen), then Walden (Ashton Kutcher) after Charlie's unexpected death when he fell in front of a subway train in Paris.

Jake and his good friend Eldridge (Graham Patrick Martin) are then required to either go to college or get a job. They choose the latter, and Alan gets them both a job at Walden's new business, Electric Suitcase, Inc., where they promptly burn the place down their first night at work by infecting the system with a virus they accidentally acquire while downloading porn. 

Faced with a 24-hour deadline, Warren and Eldridge look for another new job and end up enlisting in the army so they can "be all you can be." The show ends with the cast of family and friends crying as they leave for boot camp.

This opens up a whole new realm of opportunities for the network and actors, especially if the two friends are placed in a pilot of their own, a la Gomer Pyle, which itself was a spin-off of Mayberry RFD, a show based on the real life town of Mount Airy, NC, a hop-skip-and-a-jump from Winston-Salem, from whence Ben Folds was born and raised. 

If such a show is spun off, I would hope that CBS would film it on real North Carolina dirt, not astroturf. Perhaps their fictional lives would have them join an a cappella army choir  and appear on Live! with Kelly. Oh, the irony!

Taking on the Jazz challenge – Submit Jazz music TV performances you’ve seen here

Afro-Blue playfully attacks Sing-Off Judge Ben Folds

The Sing-Off a cappella singing competition TV show was unexpectedly amiss in controversy this year after Afro-Blue, the 9-member a cappella class-turned-performance-group from Howard University in Washington, D.C. was eliminated by the panel of expert judges on the brink of the semi-finals.

To say that viewers at home were disappointed is a bit of an understatement as social media was flooded with comments. Many of my personal friends told me that Afro-Blue was their favorite group, and although Pentatonix was my favorite by a long shot, I honestly could not understand why Afro-Blue was eliminated. America should have been given the opportunity to vote for them, perhaps allowing four groups to move forward as was done last year. They may have won, or at the very least, come in second place.

As it was, Pentatonix came in first, the Dartmouth Aires won second, and Urban Method won third after the public voted on these three choices. The public could not vote for Afro-Blue -- they were knocked out at the eleventh hour by the judges, Sara Bareilles and Ben Folds. Shawn Stockman was the only judge of the three who felt they should move forward instead.

Judge Ben Folds explained his reasoning for choosing the Dartmouth Aires over Afro-Blue in his Nov. 21, 2011 blog posted on NBC’s Sing-Off Website:

“Afro-Blue stands for excellence in music education and for the great underdog American art form of jazz. Neither of these concepts often leads to lucrative ventures and both are under-represented on TV and radio.”

Essentially, Folds was saying in so many words in his blog that he feels that Afro-Blue is not as marketable as the Dartmouth Aires. Folds confessed that Afro-Blue was his own favorite group as well and that “they were actually great TV, and they could make records. They have a charm and charisma that transcends drama and competition.” However, he felt that they simply wouldn’t make as much money as the Dartmouth Aires could with a Sony Recording contract, the grand prize in the Sing-Off a cappella competition.

I think most of us at home just figured that was a bunch of hooey.

It's not hard to tell that pop, rock, hip-hop, and country are the big money makers today. However, I feel that Folds is incorrect in claiming that jazz won't make money since he feels that by appealing to a small, elite group of intelligent listeners, it won’t sell in the big mainstream market. But, does it need to sell in the mainstream market to make money?

I’m a huge Ben Folds and Ben Folds Five fan, and I have to say, he isn’t all that mainstream himself. Survey a few friends and you’ll find maybe one in ten people, depending on their ages, who have even heard of him (you may have to sing a few bars of Brick or Rockin’ the Suburbs). However, Ben Folds made Sony Records a good deal of money. Why? Because Ben Folds fans tend to be super fans. They will buy all of his CDs and tickets to shows in their area, spend money on T-shirts and other miscellaneous swag, and invest in collectible vinyl record versions of his CDs.

I think the same could be said for jazz lovers. There’s a lot of money to be made in that market, but perhaps, as Folds expains, that market is a bit untapped at the moment. Such a shame!

Folds challenged TV viewers in his latest blog on November 28, 2011, to “Survey the year's prime time network programming and get back to me with a list of live jazz performances you saw - hell, make that ten years.”

• Live Performances – When Folds says “live,” I assume that he means actual bands playing the music, since nearly all primetime (save sports) is taped these days, and since I could probably meet this challenge in one or two weeks if I were allowed to simply list all of the jazz music tracks played in the background behind serious dramatic scenes on hit TV shows.
• Network – By network, I assume Folds means the big seven: ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC, PBS and TBS, as opposed to say, BET or the Jazz channel, which would also make this challenge far too easy.
• Primetime – Folds also asks that we find these performances in prime time, which is defined by Answers.com as “The evening hours, generally between 7 and 11 P.M., when the largest television audience is available,” as opposed to late night or daytime. That eliminates the obvious: Conan, Kimmel, Letterman, Leno, Fallon, and Ferguson. It also knocks out their counterparts greeting us each morning: the Today Show, Good Morning America, the Early Show, Good Day, and CBS Sunday morning, who coincidentally featured a segment on kids dancing to a jazz band playing in the subway this past Sunday. Unfortunately, it also counts out midday talk shows, such as (The show formerly known as) Live with Regis and Kelly (since Regis “moved on” this past month) and the Ellen DeGeneres show.

Since we are currently in the midst of the Christmas holiday season, I think we can probably find a few jazz performances during prime time on major networks in the next month.

Please keep your ears and eyes peeled and get back to me if you see something worth watching. If you can, please take the time to comment here or email me at TVgrrrrl@gmail.com.

I think one possible hit might be on tonight’s Sing-Off, which will feature a few holiday favorites. If I see a version of Eartha Kitt’s Santa Baby, I’m counting that as one. The show airs tonight between 8 pm and 10 pm on NBC (WESH 2 here in Orlando, on Channel 4 and 1020 on Brighthouse Cable).

So, X-Factor, the Voice, American Idol, I hope you’re listening. Serve me up some jazz, pretty please!

We’ll keep track here in this blog and post updates to Dr. Folds, who adds in his blog:

“When I say it's a miracle that we got vocal jazz on TV, I'm speaking reality. Further, I'm not commenting on the intelligence of the viewers but instead on the tolerance, systems, research, and paradigm of reality TV… You can hide under a rock and ignore it, or you can roll up your sleeves and get inside it and try to make a change. But expect to take some knocks because reality is more complicated than reality TV.”