newsmakers

newsmakers

Shy-bladder group protests DirecTV ad

NEW YORK

Shy-bladder sufferers want DirecTV to stop airing a television ad in which a “painfully awkward” actor Rob Lowe says that he can’t urinate in public.

The satellite-TV company suggests its critics should be able to take a joke.

Part of a campaign to encourage people to switch from cable, the ad features two Lowes: a handsome one in a slick suit who claims to be a DirecTV customer, and a goofy-looking Lowe wearing a fanny pack with his hair parted in the middle. “Painfully awkward” Lowe is a cable customer.

The ad touts DirecTV’s service, saying cable makes subscribers wait.

“Fact: I can’t go with other people in the room,” said awkward Lowe, standing at a urinal.

The ad is in poor taste and ridicules a serious problem, said Steve Soifer, CEO of the International Paruresis Association.

3 new shows canned

NEW YORK

Television viewers proved to have not much interest in seeing Kate Walsh as a misbehaving judge, a manufactured Utopian society created for the cameras or the “How I Met Your Mother” love interest portraying a lawyer in love.

Fox’s “Utopia” was perhaps that network’s biggest disappointment. Fox scheduled the reality series for two nights a week this fall, but quickly cut that back to only Fridays when it got off to a slow start. When the Nielsen company reported that this past Friday’s episode reached a paltry 1.5 million viewers, Fox pulled the plug.

NBC’s comedies “Bad Judge” and “A-to-Z,” which stars Cristin Milioti, remain on the air, but the network announced it will stop making new episodes when the initial order ends, so the programs will limp along until January.

For the week of Oct. 27- Nov. 2, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: World Series Game 7: San Francisco vs. Kansas City, Fox, 23.52 million; NFL Football: Dallas vs. Washington, ESPN, 18.81 million; NFL Football: Baltimore vs. Pittsburgh, NBC, 18.6 million;“60 Minutes,” CBS, 17.8 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 17.53 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 16.25 million; “NCIS: New Orleans,” CBS, 16.09 million; “The Walking Dead,” AMC, 14.52 million; “Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick,” NBC, 13.94 million; World Series Game 6: San Francisco vs. Kansas City, Fox, 13.37 million.

Associated Press