Dec

6

Gearing up for the new year with “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest”

December 6, 2011 | Uncategorized  |  1,050 Comments

Everyone has their unique New Year’s Eve traditions, but one that is custom for many Americans is sitting in front of the TV counting down to midnight with Dick Clark.

To celebrate its 40th year, “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2012” will include performances by The Band Perry, blink-182, Christina Perri, Florence + The Machines, Gym Class Heroes, LMFAO, OneRepublic, Nicki Minaj, Taio Cruz and will.i.am, Dick Clark Productions, Inc. announced yesterday.

These bands will perform at the Los Angeles party with Fergie as the host, while Clark, Seacrest and Jenny McCarthy will be holding down the fort in New York City, Entertainment Weekly reported.

The Los Angeles performances are being added to the previously announced New York set list, which includes performances by Lady GaGa, Justin Bieber, Pitbull and Hot Chelle Rae, Dick Clark Productions, Inc. also said.

The broadcast begins at 8 p.m., EST on Dec. 31 on ABC and will last for five and a half hours with many festivities and reports of New Year’s celebrations from all around the world.

Nov

16

BGSU students react to “Toddlers & Tiaras”

November 16, 2011 | Uncategorized  |  4,146 Comments

Pageant star Mackenzie Myers's glamour shot taken from Anderson.com

A girl has spray-tanned skin, a fancy hairstyle and heavy makeup. She is dressed in an intricate outfit while dancing on stage. No, it’s not Lady Gaga. It’s a 5-year-old pageant girl.

Hit TLC show “Toddlers & Tiaras” has placed child beauty pageants into the limelight, drawing criticism from many viewers, according to an interview Anderson Cooper had with pageant moms and children on CNN.

Many students at Bowling Green State University had the same reaction.

Pre-social work major Carolyn Aikens, 19, of Chicago, has seen the show on TLC and was shocked by the way the parents and pageants portray the young girls as sex objects. It is such a “popularity contest,” and the parents just feed into it, Aikens said.

One of Anderson Cooper’s audience members had the same concern about how the moms too comfortable with the way pageants are sexualizing their children.

Cameron Coleman, 18, of Columbus, Ohio, has also seen the show and said the children are forced to grow up too fast at such a young age.

It is putting the children on such a high pedestal, and, “the parents don’t give them a chance to be 5 or 8 years old,” Coleman said.

Accounting major Reece Timbrook, 18, of Dayton, Ohio, said the parents brainwash their children to the point where the girls are “acting like they are a Kardashian or something.”

Katie McLinden, 18, of Chicago, has never seen the show but is not completely against pageants.

It’s acceptable for older children to participate in pageants if that is what they really want to do McLinden said.

Many students felt the pageants were teaching the children poor morals.

There are over 5,000 pageants held in the U.S. every year, and about 250,000 children participate in them, according to the article on Anderson.com.

Many of those girls wear fake eyelashes, fake teeth, and fake hair. It’s acceptable when Lady Gaga does it, but many students at BGSU do not think it’s acceptable when a 5-year-old girl does it.

 

Nov

2

Controversial News Story Airs in Russia

November 2, 2011 | Uncategorized  |  125 Comments

A controversial Chechen news story aired on a national television broadcast on Sunday night in parts of Russia according to Time.

The controversial piece was 10 minutes long story about a man who was kidnapped and tortured by men in uniform because he had criticized the Chechen police over the Internet.

People of Russia are not used to seeing this type of news on their television. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin gained control of the leading broadcasters in Russia back in the early 2000s, allowing only certain stories to be displayed on national television according to Time.

By the time the broadcast made it to Moscow and European Russia, the report had been changed to a story about ballet.”The story was shown in the Far East, after which the management decided to send it back for revision and fact checking. This is common practice in news editorial bureaux,” a spokeswoman for NTV, the channel that ran the controversial story, said, according to Reuters.

However, human rights campaigners and journalists see the decision to pull the story as a massive attack on the freedom of speech in Russia, according to Reuters.

The reporters of the Chechen story did not have much faith it would air but wanted to try anyways. The Russian Committee Against Torture activist Alexander Nemov told Time, “[The reporters] told us they were taking a big risk. They said there wasn’t much chance of the program airing in Moscow. They just wanted to try it.”

The reporters were right.

Oct

26

Twitter and TV are in it Together

October 26, 2011 | Uncategorized  |  65 Comments

Audience members are now able to vote for their favorite contestants on the new FOX show “The X Factor” via Twitter, according to The New York Times.

Simon Cowell, the producer of the television show, already uses Twitter to get feedback from the audience members by the comments they make. However, now people just have to message the shows Twitter page to cast their vote. The live voting will begin on Nov. 2.

Twitter has agreed to the new voting option because of the relationship they share with the television industry. According the The New York Times, “The X Factor” has given its new partners free promotions and advertisements on the show to boost the number of users on the website.

Chloe Sladden, an employee at Twitter, was hired specifically to bridge the gap between Twitter and TV. Sladden helped Twitter not only form an agreement with “The X Factor” but also helped form an agreement with The Weather Channel back in August that provides weather-related tweets to the television channel.

Social TV is meant to increase the number of viewers for TV shows so people can react to it more quickly.

The New York Times quoted Cowell as saying, “The only powerful people now on TV are the people on Twitter and Facebook.”

 

Oct

18

TV Personality Announces She Has Breast Cancer

October 18, 2011 | Uncategorized  |  16 Comments

Giuliana Rancic, 37, announced on the “Today Show” Monday that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Rancic is the of “E! News” and co-host of “Fashion Police”. She also stars in the reality show “Giuliana & Bill” with her husband Bill Rancic, where they document their difficulties with trying to have a baby through in-vitro fertilization. Their most recent IVF specialist suggested that Rancic get a mammogram before they proceeded with the treatment because IVF can accelerate cancer. She was hesitant at first because she was so young and did not have any history of breast cancer in her family but finally agreed to the mammogram.

Rancic will have surgery next week along with six and a half weeks of radiation to cure the cancer. Luckily, she found the cancer early enough where it should be completely treatable. Rancic said she decided to announce her diagnosis because she wants to send a message to other women out there that would inspire and educate them. She said, “I just want women out there to know that you — if you can just find it early, you will — you know, you could be OK.”

Rancic is also not ready to give up on her hopes of becoming a mother. It is just going to take a little longer than she had expected. She said, “I’m not going to give up. You know, I want that baby. And what’s amazing is that that baby will have saved my life.”

Oct

11

About me.

October 11, 2011 | Uncategorized  |  21 Comments

Hi! My name is Hannah Hilyard, and I am a sophomore at Bowling Green State University and am from Peoria, Ill. Everyone assumes if you are from Illinois, you are from the Chicago area, but Peoria is actually about three hours south of Chicago and about three hours north of St. Louis.

I am a pretty busy person, so when I actually get free time, I love just lounging on the couch watching television or movies. In high school, my best friend and I loved spending a whole day in front of the television watching our favorite shows. My favorite shows are Glee and One Tree Hill. I also love How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family, Dexter, etc. Whoo, I could just go on and on and on. I also enjoy critiquing new shows.

Another fun fact about me is that I love sports. I am actually typing this blog as a distraction from the Detroit Tigers/Texas Rangers playoff baseball game because I am a huge Tigers fan and am too nervous to watch. I played volleyball all through high school and play club at the university, as well.

Well, as you can tell, I am a pretty chatty person and cannot wait to dig deeper into this blog. This blog is going to dive into specific news stories relating to television. It’s going to be all television, all the time!