newsmakers

newsmakers

CBS wins ratings crown with ‘I Love Lucy’

LOS ANGELES

Nearly six decades after it first aired, an “I Love Lucy” Christmas special was last week’s most-watched holiday program, according to ratings released Tuesday.

There was a gimmick involved: The episode of the 1950s Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz sitcom was colorized, as was a companion episode that featured Lucy as a grape-stomper in Italy.

The “I Love Lucy” special on CBS drew 8.7 million viewers to rank as last Friday night’s most-watched program and No. 16 for the week overall, according to Nielsen figures. Holiday runner-up “A Charlie Brown Christmas” — a relative newcomer that debuted in 1965 — settled for 6.4 million the previous night on ABC.

NBC could sing a happy tune, emerging as the most-popular network among advertiser-favored young adults on the strength of the season-finale episodes of “The Voice” and the NFL Bears-Eagles game on “Sunday Night Football.”

CBS was the No. 1 network among total viewers, buoyed by its reliable crime dramas, including “NCIS” and the series’ Los Angeles-based spinoff.

CBS averaged 8.8 million viewers in prime time, followed by NBC with 8.1 million. ABC had 5.1 million, Fox had 3.4 million, Univision had 2.8 million, Telemundo had 1.3 million and ION Television had 1.4 million. CW had 980,000.

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 9.2 million viewers. ABC’s “World News” was second with 7.9 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 7.1 million viewers.

ESPN was the week’s most-popular cable network, averaging 2.9 million viewers in prime time. The Family Channel had 2.38 million, the Disney Channel had 2.3 million, USA had 2.2 million and History had 2 million.

For the week of Dec. 16-22, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “NCIS,” CBS, 19.7 million; “NBC Sunday Night Football: Chicago at Philadelphia,” NBC, 18.3 million; “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 15.6 million; “NFL Regular Season: Baltimore at Detroit,” ESPN, 14.2 million; “The Voice (Tuesday),” NBC, 14 million; “Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kickoff,” NBC, 13.6 million; “The Voice (Wednesday),” NBC, 12.7 million; “Person of Interest,” CBS, 12.4 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 12 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 11.3 million.

NJ tribe sues makers of ‘Out of the Furnace’

NEWARK, N.J.

Members of the Ramapough Native American tribe have filed a $50 million lawsuit against the makers of a recent Hollywood movie they say depicts their people in a negative light.

The federal suit was filed Monday in New Jersey against the writers and producers of “Out of the Furnace.” The suit claims the film makes false representations about the people who live in the Ramapo Mountains along the New York-New Jersey line about 25 miles west of New York City.

It claims that unsavory characters in the film have last names that are common among the Ramapough and that it perpetuates negative and unfounded stereotypes.

Relativity Media, which released the film this month, did not immediately respond to a request to comment from The Associated Press. But a representative told other news outlets that the company couldn’t comment because it hadn’t seen or had time to review the suit.

The movie stars Christian Bale as a man trying to find his missing brother, who has gotten involved with a bare-knuckle fighting ring in the mountains of New Jersey.

The movie’s villain, played by Woody Harrelson, has the last name DeGroat, which is common among the Ramapough. Tribal members identify as descendants of the Lenape or Lunaape Nation, with some Dutch and other European ancestry in their heritage. Most of the 17 plaintiffs in the suit have the DeGroat last name.

Harrelson’s character is the leader of a gang of “inbreds,” according to the suit, who are depicted as lawless, drug-addicted, poor and violent, and live in the “mountains of New Jersey.”

The film also uses the term “Jackson Whites,” a historically derogatory term for the Ramapough, and refers to “the inbred mountain folk of Jersey,” according to the suit.

Associated Press