Lionel Cironneau/associated press
Ivana Trump
YOU DON’T SAY? Ivana Trump, ex-wife of the Donald, has told the Associated Press that she thinks the public war of words between her ex-husband and Rosie O’Donnell, aired so vigorously on The View and in whatever paper or show Trump could get on over the holidays, was nothing more than a publicity stunt.
“Donald and Rosie, they’re getting fantastic ratings, they’re getting publicity, they’re really using it as a marketing tool,” Ivana said, “not because they are enemies, and I understand that only too well.”
Last Sunday, Donald’s fantastic ratings for the latest season of The Apprentice were just over 3.1 millions viewers, compared to the Colts-Patriots NFL game on CBS with 46.7 million viewers, and 7.3 million for Desperate Housewives on ABC. If Donald’s ratings were any more fantastic, he’d have to start following around the Bush Baby guy and his friend from Idol’s Seattle auditions, calling them names and telling them all about his hot model wife and his sold gold toilet.
THEY DON’T QUITE GET IT: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is going to China, according to a story in Variety yesterday. 2waytraffic, a Dutch TV producer, acquired the show when it bought Complete Communications Corporation Ltd. late last year, and among their first orders of business was obviously a deal with China Media Power to produce a local version of the show.
“This is our first major deal in China,” 2waytraffic CEO Kees Abrahams told Variety. “We are looking forward to working closely with China Media Power to create a version of the show, which will both prove popular with viewers while also satisfying the specific conditions of China’s broadcasting environment.”
“Specific conditions” apparently mean that only celebrity contestants will be allowed to play the trivia game, and they have to donate their winnings to charity. In related news, the People’s Liberation Army and the Politburo Standing Committee are now registered charities.
SMART TV: Shows broadcast over the internet are drawing an audience much more attractive to advertisers than those marooned in broadcast, according to a study just released by Nielsen. Shows like Heroes and Grey’s Anatomy, which have been made available online by their networks, pull in a “younger, more affluent, better educated and tech savvy” viewer, says Larry Gerbrandt, general manager and senior vice president of Nielsen Analytics. Extending that logic as far as it goes, a show that was only watched by Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffet and King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia would command billions of dollars a minute in commercial air time, but would cost millions of lives per episode.
