As 2012 comes to a close, all of the broadcast networks will be reporting from New York City's Times Square as the ball drops to ring in the new year.
For those uninterested (or unable) to catch the festivities on the tube, the below live stream will have a webcast from Times Square without any commercials -- and, for the first time, an up-to-the-minute feed of GIFs of the night's more memorable moments.
Watch below:
Looks like the E! family is getting even bigger.
Reality superstar Kim Kardashian is expecting her first child with rapper Kanye West -- he made the surprise announcement during a Dec. 30 concert in Atlantic City -- and plans to document her journey on the network.
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"Kim and Kanye are an incredibly dynamic couple, and their baby news is just so exciting," E! president Suzanne Kolb tells The Hollywood Reporter in a statement. "Like so many Kardashian fans, we love it when this close-knit family gets even bigger. We look forward to sharing the joy as they prepare for more diapers, more bottle and without a doubt, more fabulous baby wear."
Undoubtedly, the network can also look forward to major ratings spikes for upcoming episodes of the Kardashian franchise -- including the newest season of Kourtney & Kim Take Miami, premiering Jan. 20. One insider says the network "will continue to cover all aspects of Kim’s life as it always has," including Kim's pregnancy and perhaps even the birth. (The season seven finale of the mothership series Keeping Up With the Kardashians on Nov. 16 saw the birth of Kourtney Kardashian’s second child with Scott Disick and earned 3.6 million viewers, making it one of the top 25 broadcasts in network history.)
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Kim, who began dating West in April 2012, is still legally married to professional basketball player Kris Humphries. The pair wed in August 2011 and documented the event for an E! special, Kim's Fairytale Wedding, which brought in 10.5 million viewers over two nights; they separated after 72 days.
For his part, West has already made a handful of appearances during the show's seventh season, including an Aug. 26 episode during which the rap star offers to help Kim clean out her closet and suggests she tosses a shearling tote bag, to which the reality star asks: "Shouldn't I keep this for my daughter one day?"
But Kim, perhaps it's a boy.
AMC Networks and Time Warner Cable are continuing to negotiate a long-term carriage deal renewal for the IFC and WE tv cable channels, but have agreed on a temporary extension to avoid a year-end blackout of the networks.
Spokeswomen for AMC Networks and Time Warner Cable on Monday confirmed the extension, but didn't detail how long it would keep the channels on the air. They also didn't comment on the state of negotiations about a new longer-term carriage deal.
TW Cable's right to carry IFC, home to such shows as Fred Armisen's Portlandia and The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, and WE tv, which airs Braxton Family Values, was scheduled to expire at the start of 2013.
The flagship AMC network, home of Mad Men and The Walking Dead, is not part of the discussions since TW Cable has a separate carriage deal for it.
The news of the extension and continued talks came as Viacom and Cablevision Systems faced a year-end deadline to renew their current carriage agreement for Viacom's suite of channels, including Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and MTV.
Led by CEO Glenn Britt, TW Cable has taken a tougher stance against cable networks group. At a recent investor conference, he said the cable operator could drop underperforming networks or push them to different tiers.
AMC Networks, led by CEO Josh Sapan, recently struck new carriage deals with Verizon's FiOS TV, AT&T's U-Verse and satellite TV firm Dish Network.
Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com
Twitter: @georgszalai
Sunday Night Football went out on an especially high note for NBC, with the match-up between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins earning football's biggest ratings for a primetime regular season game in 15 years.
The game averaged 26.67 million viewers and a 18.3 overnight rating among households. The last game to pull in higher numbers was ABC's 1997 showdown between the Broncos and the 49-ers.
In the demo, early returns give the game a whopping 9.0 rating among adults 18-49. With a 90-minute Football Night in America (4.2 adults rating), NBC averaged a 7.3 rating in the key demo and 21.4 million viewers for the entire night.
Football overrun and animation encores gave Fox a distant second place finish for the night. The network averaged a 3.7 rating with adults 18-49 and 10.3 million viewers.
CBS, which also started the night with football overrun, had a new episode of 60 Minutes (1.5 adults) followed by encores. The network averaged a 1.1 with adults 18-49 and 7.5 million viewers.
Airing an America's Funniest Home Videos repeat and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, ABC netted a 0.9 adults rating and 3.5 million viewers.
How will South Korean sensation Psy usher in 2013? By partying with the huddled masses in New York’s Times Square, where he’ll appear as a featured act on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.
And there’s certainly lots to celebrate: a billion YouTube views for his hit “Gangnam Style,” a world record he set just over a week earlier, a recording contract with Scooter Braun’s Schoolboy Records, his 35th birthday on Jan. 1 and a brief breather from nonstop action as he crisscrossed the country -- and the globe -- bringing K-Pop to radio stations, concert stages and living rooms via appearances on Ellen DeGeneres, Today, SNL and The Tonight Show, among others. Finally, Psy, who’s married and a father to twins, tells The Hollywood Reporter, “I really can celebrate myself and my last four or five months.”
And no doubt he’ll do it in style. Read on for more insight into the international pop phenom who THR named one of its 2012 rule-breakers.
The Hollywood Reporter: With all of the appearances that you make, are you on a plane every single day?
Psy: I think so. At least for the last couple months. I'm away from my home a very long time. And it seems I cannot go back there until next March or April. … But the thing is, I'm a singer and entertainer. On the stage, I get filled up with the applause.
THR: We’ve given this a lot of thought: what is it about “Gangnam Style” that people most gravitate to -- is it the song, the video or the dance?
Psy: I've thought about it, too, so that I can repeat it on the next single. [Laughs] In analyzing that, it's really hard to tell. You can say it was all about the video, right? But I'm thinking, people are already done with the video. They’ve already seen it, and even if they repeat watching my video, they can do it at most, like, twenty times. Then you get tired of it, right? So it has to be the dance. … [Because] they make it their own. They can improvise in different circumstances.
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THR: When “Gangnam Style” reached No. 1 on the Hot 100, what was it like to see your name at the top of a Billboard chart?
Psy: So me and Scooter [Braun], our job the last couple months was to get people to know the name Psy. Because when I first came to the United States market, they described me as “the You Tube guy,” then they would say, “the horse dance guy,” then the “Gangnam Style” guy and now, just Psy.
THR: Even with that recognition, though, these days, fame no longer lasts fifteen minutes now, it's fifteen seconds…
Psy: And this is like the heaviest pressure I’ve ever had in the last twelve years of my career. But what's great is, I'm not a rookie at all. I've had some huge success in Korea so it felt kind of similar to me.
"When I first came to the United States market, they described me as 'the You Tube guy,' then they would say, 'the horse dance guy,' then the 'Gangnam Style' guy and now, it's just Psy."
Psy: Yes. When good things are happening, I think maybe some bad thing is gonna come and I should prepare. But I thank my parents because they've borne a kid who is, like, too positive. I'm that kind of person -- I basically think, there's two kinds of concerns in the world: one is if I worry, and then it changes, and the other where it doesn't matter if I worry or not [because] there’s nothing I can do to change it. For example, if I worried about tomorrow's weather, would it matter? So after 12 years, I can classify the concerns.
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THR: You attended Christmas at the White House, what was it like to meet President Obama?
Psy: He was like a really cool brother. Really. I was so impressed. I was really nervous and stunned before meeting him, but he has such a great talent to make people feel taken care of.
THR: What do you think is America's greatest export?
Psy: First of all, the English language. And also pop music. A song like Michael Jackson “Billie Jean,” it's like the world's biggest, most universal language.
THR: Are you getting asked to do a lot of cameos and appear on other peoples’ songs?
Psy: I'm asked a lot and I'm also asking a lot. Me and Scooter are working really aggressively these days for my new album.
THR: You signed with Scooter Braun not long after your first meeting. What was it about him that impressed you?
Psy: When he told me about his adopted brothers [from Africa] and how being Jewish he’s like all the immigrants, all the underdogs. That's the reason why he didn’t want the lyrics to “Gangnam Style” to be translated [to English]. That was the first comment that he made to me. And I was really touched. I was, like, “Where the hell did this guy come from?” He’s made such a huge difference for my vision. … And he has the highest alcohol tolerance of any American. We had a drinking contest and he literally beat the shit out of me. And I have a very high tolerance [Laughs]
THR: If you had to describe 2012 in five words, what would they be?
Psy: "Becoming a rookie once again."
Twittter: @shirleyhalperin
Irving Saraf, a producer, editor and director who won an Academy Award for producing the 1991 feature documentary In the Shadow of the Stars, has died. He was 80.
Born in Poland and raised and educated in Israel, Saraf died Dec. 26 at his home in San Francisco after a three-year battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
One of his sons is Peter Saraf, the Oscar-nominated producer whose résumé includes Adaptation (2002), Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and Our Idiot Brother (2011).
Saraf, who came to the U.S. in 1952, founded the film unit of San Francisco public TV station KQED and was the former manager of Saul Zaentz’s production company Fantasy Films. Working with Zaentz, he produced a score of movies and served as postproduction supervisor of the 1976 best picture winner One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
With Allie Light, his producing partner since 1981 and second wife, Saraf co-directed, edited and produced In the Shadow of the Stars, which relegated the divas to the background to focus on the lives of the members of the chorus of the San Francisco Opera.
Saraf and Light also shared a News and Documentary Emmy for outstanding interview program in 1995 for PBS’ Dialogues With Madwomen.
His more than 150 credits also include the 1965 telefilm Poland, Communism’s New Look; 1966’s USA Poetry: Twelve Films About Modern Poets; and 2009’s Empress Hotel, about the downtrodden residents of the hotel located in San Francisco's Tenderloin district.
A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Saraf received a B.A. in motion pictures from UCLA and for many years taught film production at San Francisco State University.
In addition to Light, his wife of 38 years, and son Peter, Saraf is survived by other children Michal, Ilana, Alexis, Charles and Julia and eight grandchildren.
The National Football League has set the dates for its perennial ratings juggernauts, the league’s wild card and divisional playoff games. Commissioner Roger Goodell announced Sunday when the games would be airing on CBS, FOX and NBC.
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Find the NFL’s wild card schedule below.
Saturday, Jan. 5
AFC: 4:30 p.m. ET on NBC: Cincinnati at Houston
NFC: 8 p.m. ET on NBC: Minnesota at Green Bay
Sunday, Jan. 6
AFC: 1 p.m. ET on CBS: Indianapolis at Baltimore
NFC: 4:30 p.m. ET on FOX Seattle at Washington/Dallas
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The NFL’s divisional playoff schedule can be found below.
Saturday, Jan. 12
AFC: 4:30 p.m. ET on CBS: Baltimore/Indianapolis/Cincinnatiat Denver
NFC: 8 p.m. ET on FOX: Green Bay/Washington/Dallas/Seattle at San Francisco
Sunday, Jan. 13
NFC: 1 p.m. on FOX: Washington/Dallas/Seattle/Minnesota at Atlanta
AFC: 4:30 p.m. ET on CBS: Houston/Baltimore/Indianapolis at New England
The AFC and NFC championship games will be played on Jan. 20, with the AFC game airing on CBS at 6:30 p.m. ET and the NFC game airing on Fox at 3 p.m. ET.
The 2013 Pro Bowl airs on NBC Jan. 27 at 7 p.m. ET. It will be broadcast from Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii. Super Bowl XLVII airs on CBS Feb. 3 at 6:30 p.m. and will take place at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans.
