An Oscar for Oscars

OK, I liked the Oscars telecast. I thought Jon Stewart was funny. I liked the fake commercials. I liked the suprises, like “Crash” winning best movie over “Brokeback Mountain.”
Yeah, I’m a homer, but I thought George Clooney was very funny and gracious in his acceptance speech. Loved his opening line (“All right, so I’m not winning director?”), and his joking about his obituary (“Oscar-winner George Clooney, the sexiest man alive in 1997, and “Batman,” died today in a freak accident”). Loved his sense of humor, mentioning “Batman” and not his achievements…
He also showed class in praising the other nominees (“they are stellar performances and wonderful work”) and playing off Stewart’s joke about Hollywood being out of touch (citing the 1939 Oscar for Hattie McDaniel).
I’m sure I’ll get hammered by you for liking the show so much. What did you like or not like?

WB/UPN blues
Thanks for the posting Friday about Ch 64/Sinclair Broadcast Group dumping the WB network and going with Fox's new MyNetworkTV. I had heard about it earlier in the day, and did a short brief Saturday for our Business section.
I'm not totally suprised. Sinclair is a shrewed operator. They got Warner Bros to pay millions back in 1998 to switch Ch 64 from UPN to WB. I'm sure Sinclair got a great deal with Fox for being the largest group owner so far to take MyNetwork TV, and make it viable.
I also wasn't totaly suprised when Elliott Block, owner of low-power Ch 38, told me that he has not had any discussions with the new CW network, the merger of the WB and UPN assets premiering this fall. In the past, UPN and WB first have targeted Ch 64, the full-power station, and much later cut a deal with the low-power station.
Block says the CW hadn't ever returned his phone calls. I bet they will now. My guess is that we’ll see a repeat of what happened in 1995 and 1998. In '95, when UPN signed with Ch 64, later the WB went to Block's low-power station (then Ch 25). In '98, UPN eventually went to Ch 25 (now 38) after Sinclair took the WB. Sometime before the fall TV season, the CW likely will go to low-power Channel 38. There isn't another option. (Cincinnati has fewer UHF stations than other similar size cities, dating back to FCC allocations in the 1950s. We're now blocked in by stations in Dayton, Columbus, Indianapolis, Lexington and Louisville. We're "under TVed," network executives say.)

Another question: If the CW goes on Channel 38, with such hits as “Gilmore Girls,” “Veronica Mars,” “One Tree Hill,” “Charmed,” etc., will Time Warner cable expand its coverage of Channel 38? (Right now it just picks up Ch 38's UPN programming in the evenings.) Don’t count on it; it's nothing automatic. When Ch. 38 (then Ch 25) was the Warner Bros network station 1995-98, the Warner cable system here didn’t carry it full-time. We’ll see what happens.

Kiese-watching
ABC’s “Miracle Workers” premiere tonight (10 p.m., Chs 9, 22) spends most of the hour with a blind man being treated by Dr. Edward J. Holland, director of cornea services at Cincinnati Eye Institute. “Miracle Workers” sends Todd Heritage, 34, of Kent, Ohio, down here in an effort to restore Todd’s eyesight after 22 years. The music and hype are a little over the top, and the comments from participants are repetitive, but I won’t tell you how it comes out – though you can guess if this is the big prime-time debut, and the show is called “Miracle Workers.”
Your best TV tonight is a “24” double feature (8-10 p.m., Chs 19, 45) since “Skating with the Stars” went away.