‘Sopranos’ was tops in creativity for 2007

Networks boosted efforts to put TV shows on other media platforms.

By FRAZIER MOORE

AP TELEVISION WRITER

NEW YORK — It was a year of rampant uncertainty for the unsuspecting couch potato.

For instance, months after the June finale of “The Sopranos,” viewers were still scratching their heads over that cut-to-black, nonending ending — and still ready to argue.

Like it or not, “The Sopranos”’ final season was a creative high point of 2007.

Maybe the popular choice for low point: ABC sitcom “Cavemen.” (Though CBS’ “Viva Laughlin,” which was yanked after two airings in one week, deserves honorable mention.)

Viewers could have guessed prime-time wouldn’t be packing too many delights come fall when, two weeks after proudly announcing the schedule, NBC’s programming boss Kevin Reilly was canned. He was replaced by the two-man team of veteran TV exec Marc Graboff and independent producer Ben Silverman, whose company had previously delivered “The Office” to NBC and “Ugly Betty” to ABC.

In July, Reilly was partnered at Fox with its newly promoted entertainment chairman, Peter Liguori. Years earlier, they had worked together at Fox’s cable sibling FX.

But despite these musical chairs by the powers-that-be, viewers tended to react to the fall crop with a yawn and a flip of the channel to tried-and-true offerings such as “CSI” and “Dancing with the Stars.”

While the networks were trying, with uncertain success, to lure viewers to TV screens, they boosted their efforts in another direction: to put TV shows and related content on Web sites, iPods and other media platforms. As the networks rushed to occupy a multiplatform world, an age-old question — “What’s on TV?” — seemed more suitably expressed, “What’s TV on?”

The answer was constantly changing and expanding as execs stayed busy trying to keep their programming in the audience’s face ... wherever the face was gazing.

Veteran newsman Dan Rather stayed busy, too, producing a weekly news program he had launched in late 2006 for Mark Cuban’s HDNet.

But he had other things on his mind. In September, he filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and his former bosses, claiming they made him a “scapegoat” for a discredited story about President Bush’s military service during the Vietnam War. The 76-year-old Rather, whose final months at CBS News were clouded by controversy over the story, claims the actions of the defendants damaged his reputation and cost him significant financial loss.

CBS called Rather’s complaints “old news” and has since sought to have the lawsuit dismissed.

In October — 11 years after Fox News Channel’s debut — its spinoff Fox Business Network switched on with a stated mission to “bring Wall Street to Main Street.” Vying against CNBC (owned by powerful General Electric Co.), the upstart FBN (with its likewise huge owner, News Corp.) had declared a new front for the clash of these media titans.

A tumultuous year saw its share of talent shake-ups.

In June, Isaiah Washington lost his job on the hit ABC medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy,” five months after creating a furor with his use of an anti-gay slur backstage at the Golden Globes.

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore,” said Washington, who, a month later, was pleased to take a deal with NBC for a limited run on its new fall series, “Bionic Woman,” and possibly a series of his own.

In April, outspoken radio host Don Imus was fired by CBS from his long-running network radio show, a day after MSNBC pulled the plug on his TV simulcast. Imus had created a firestorm by making an on-air racial and sexist remark about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

Duly chastened, Imus was back on the radio and a cable TV network by December.

In May, Rosie O’Donnell made a noisy (for her, is there any other?) exit from ABC’s weekday chatfest “The View” after less than a year as its moderator. She was soon replaced by Whoopi Goldberg (with Sherri Shepherd also joining the panel).

In a refreshingly graceful retirement, the incomparable Bob Barker told viewers goodbye in June, after 35 years as host of “The Price Is Right” and 50 years in daytime TV.

“The thing that surprises me most is that I got through the whole [show] without crying,” the 83-year-old legend marveled to reporters after the taping. Drew Carey was tapped to replace him and made his debut in October.

Then in early November, an unusual star turn: The usually behind-the-scenes writers seized the TV and movie spotlight. Clapping shut their laptops, they went on strike against the studios and networks that employ them.

Suddenly, scripted dramas and comedies weren’t being written. Neither were gags and monologues for late-night talk-comedy shows, which resorted to reruns (other than NBC’s “Last Call with Carson Daly,” which resumed production sans writers in early December).

Viewers fearing the encroachment of rerun hell have begun asking how long this work stoppage is going to continue, particularly as they hear industry experts speculate that, barring a swift resolution, the rest of the prime-time season could end up in tatters — and that even the 2008-09 season could be hurt by a dearth of scripted pilots ready by March to be considered for next fall.

The best-informed answer to “how long”? Nobody knows. It’s been that kind of year.