Game of Kings. Online comments decry the deaths of minor characters

After just three episodes, Game of Thrones is already on its way to becoming the kind of TV show that produces a messianic fervor among viewers writes Wired.

Fans are so into HBO’s new knight’s tale that they’re getting into physical altercations and taking to online comment sections to decry the deaths of minor characters. Some are even signing up for premium cable just to follow the action.

Read full article.

Do You Suffer from Netflix Streaming Syndrome?

Watching countless movies or TV shows whenever you want to is giving rise according to Gawker, to Netflix Streaming Syndrome, or elsewhere around the world where Neflix is not available, just plain Streaming Syndrome.

Symptoms include:

-- Insomnia brought on by watching every episode of a compelling series in a row at the expense of getting a good night's sleep.

-- Anti-social behavior as a result of staying in and making it a "Netflix night" rather than going out in public and seeing other human beings.

-- Blackouts induced by spending an entire day watching movies back-to-back.

-- A gnawing impatience when you can't watch what you want to watch when you want to watch it coupled with fits of rage when movies are not available for streaming.

I would add :

-- Procrasting by watching streaming videos instead of doing actual work.

We will definitely read more about this in the future - especially on how it's impacting students and their studies.

A force behind the lower teen birthrate: MTV's '16 and Pregnant'

A new report from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy actually credits MTV's "16 and Pregnant" documentary series with lowering the birth rate in 2009, following a 5% increase from 2005 to 2007.

A spokesman for the study says: "Some critics say these shows glamorize teen pregnancy, but our survey data shows that's not the case – that not only do they not glamorize it, but teens who have seen it suggest it makes the realities of teen parenthood more real to them."

[The Christian Science Monitor via tvtatte]

More Than 1,000 North Koreans Jailed for Watching Movies

According to a Seoul-based defector group, more than 1,000 North Koreans have been jailed for secretly watching South Korean TV shows and films.

[via AP]

The story of the crime drama and the cellphone

An interesting Op-Ed piece in the Boston Globe by Carlo Rotella, reflecting on TV characters and their cell phones.

Apparently, what viewers want to see are children in danger and people using cellphones.

“Law and Order’’ franchise, have you noticed how much screen time is taken up by actors talking on cellphones?

Real cops do use their cellphones, of course, just as they sleep and use the bathroom, and I can appreciate how the device of the timely call or text message serves writers looking for efficient ways to advance the plot. But is there anything more irritatingly dull than watching someone else, even a good-looking actor, use a cellphone? Yes, they whip it out with a stylish gesture and speak into it with dramatic terseness, but there’s only so much one can do to dress up the act itself.

So why do we want — or at least consent — to watch anything so inherently tedious? I see no evidence that the shows are protesting the small declines in quality of life that form the downside of the convenience of cellphones. I think it’s more likely that the annoyances associated with cellphones have grown so normal that they’re almost invisible...

Read full article.

Mindset Media Study: You are what you watch

Creative people watch "Mad Men," rebels tune into "Family Guy" and people who think they are superior to others catch "The Office," according to "psychographic ad targeter" Mindset Media, which studied 25,000 viewers across 70 TV shows.

Only a few mainstream shows like "House" and "Bones" didn't have any single personality that stood out statistically either because the audiences are so broad, or the fact that personality isn't a driver of viewership.

[Adage via tvtattle]

Mad Men Casting Call Contest

Banana Republic has joined up with Mad Men to launch a Mad Men Casting Call which started in July.

Contestants have to register at a Banana Republic retail store and retrieve a code which will enable them to enter the contest and post their picture online.

Visitors to the website are invited to vote for their favorite male and female submssion through September 17. The favorite will win a walk-on role on the popular series.

Maidenform business perks up thanks to partnership with Mad Men Stylist

Following an article in UK's Daily Mail earlier this month, on how women are discarding their thongs in favour of larger underwear, today's New York's Daily Mail writes that 'Mad Men' has helped Maidenform perk up profits and boost the bra industry. Maidenform is a brand of women's underwear that's been around since 1922.

Maidenform has a new partnership with Janie Bryant, the costume designer who makes the ladies of "Mad Men" look boldly busty.

Maidenform's bras range make it possible for women to follow the curvaceous figure of Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks) and the svelte shape of Betty Draper (January Jones) straight from the small screen to the Macy's dressing room.

Read full article.

Previously: - Man Men Style Leads the Way in Women's Lingerie

Mad Men Furniture and Clothing Now Up for Auction on eBay

As the storyline of Mad Men moved out of Sterling Cooper to their newly created firm Sterling Cooper Draper & Pryce, the office furniture from Sterling Cooper is for sale on ebay.

It's also a charity auction, in their own words:

The ten-day charity auction will also feature a variety of vintage ‘60s furniture and props from the show’s iconic Sterling Cooper ad agency, including a number of pieces from the offices of Don Draper and Roger Sterling. Additional items include a dress worn by Betty at the Stork Club, one worn by Joan in the famous lawn-mower episode, and the dress worn by Bobbie Barrett during her night on the town with Don.

[via Gawker]

Mad Men style leads the way in women's Lingerie

According to UK's Daily Mail, women are discarding their thongs in favour of larger underwear models.

The trend for high waist briefs is being credited to a revival in Fifties and Sixties waist-cinching styles, made famous by curvy actress Christina Hendricks on US TV drama Mad Men.

Up to twice the size of normal knickers, waist-nippers flatter the hourglass figure by trimming in a woman's stomach and pushing out the hips and breasts.

Lingerie retailers say a surge in demand for larger styles is also due to the patronage of stars, such as Lily Allen and Lady Gaga, who have sparked an 'underwear-as- outerwear' trend.

Read more.

[via tvtattle]

Study to capture memories of historic TV moments

The influence television has had on family life in Wales will form part of a new study by Aberystwyth University. [via the BBC]

Researchers working on Media and Memory in Wales 1950 - 2000 will record interviews with people about their memories of watching historic moments.

They will be asked about significant events such as the Queen's coronation and the Aberfan disaster.

Organisers say their answers will help researchers reflect their sense of belonging and identity.

Read full article.

Mad Men Characters on Twitter

A wonderful piece from The Guardian on Mad Men fans impersonating their favorite characters on Twitter.

Season Two of Mad Men started running on America's AMC network, and people noticed the characters starting to pop up on the social networking service Twitter, filling people in on the minutiae of their day.

The entire enterprise was just some really, really zealous fans trying to get inside the minds of the employees of Sterling Cooper. Because being a fictional character shouldn't be an impediment to one's ability to waste time on the interweb. These people loved Mad Men, and they wanted to drag the characters they loved into their world.

By last autumn there were at least 75 different Twitter accounts purporting to be Mad Men characters, including multiples. It started with Don. Then there are at least four Betty Drapers, one of whom has a blog describing daily life in the Draper household, including recipes scanned and tested from authentic copies of 1962 Life magazine. A least five Peggy Olsons. The Drapers' kids, Sally and Bobby, both have a couple each. Best of all, the office photocopier has a Twitter account.

Perhaps it's time for TV's bigwigs to realise there's a new fandom out there: devotees who not only reach out to their favourite characters, but want to crawl under their skin – be they philanderer or photocopier.

The last word on the subject, however, surely belongs to Xerox914, who said, on 17 January at 9.52am precisely: "There are still donuts from last week if anyone wants one".

Fab. Read full article.

Mad Men inspired ads to run during Mad Men episodes

Cashing in on the success of Mad Men and in a tribute to it's success, AMC has made a deal with a giant marketer, Unilever, for a season-long sponsorship agreement centered on six commercials being created in the Mad Men vein. Mediacoder reports.

In addition to appearing during all 13 episodes of the current, fourth season of “Mad Men,” the commercials will also be on a YouTube channel and Facebook, as well as on other Web sites.

The commercials are set at an ad agency named Smith Winter Mitchell, which like Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is a make-believe firm. The year is 1964, as it is in this season of “Mad Men,” which began on July 25.

Watch the first Dove commercial here.

[via tvtattle]

Omar's coming to the University of York

The Wire, a cult US television series about the fight against crime in Baltimore will be studied at the University of York from this autumn as part of its sociology degree, according to The Telegraph.

The 10-week module, thought to be the first of its kind in the Britain, will be offered to all final year students.

Titled The Wire as Social Science Fiction?, it will use the HBO series to look at topics including class, race, political process and the city.

The lecturer behind the course believes the popular show could challenge traditional methods of teaching and presenting social science.

Read full article.

The “CSI effect”

Television dramas that rely on forensic science to solve crimes are affecting the administration of justice. The Economist reports.

A new phrase has entered the criminological lexicon: the “CSI effect” after shows such as “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”. In 2008 Monica Robbers, an American criminologist, defined it as “the phenomenon in which jurors hold unrealistic expectations of forensic evidence and investigation techniques, and have an increased interest in the discipline of forensic science.”

Now another American researcher has demonstrated that the “CSI effect” is indeed real. Evan Durnal of the University of Central Missouri’s Criminal Justice Department has collected evidence from a number of studies to show that exposure to television drama series that focus on forensic science has altered the American legal system in complex and far-reaching ways. His conclusions have just been published in Forensic Science International.

The most obvious symptom of the CSI effect is that jurors think they have a thorough understanding of science they have seen presented on television, when they do not.

... According to Mr Durnal, prosecutors in the United States are now spending much more time explaining to juries why certain kinds of evidence are not relevant. Prosecutors have even introduced a new kind of witness—a “negative evidence” witness—to explain that investigators often fail to find evidence at a crime scene.

Read full article.

Related and Contradictory:

-- The "CSI" effect (Neotorama 2008)

-- A Study of Juror Expectations and Demands Concerning Scientific Evidence: Does the “CSI Effect” Exist? (pdf)

-- Study Debunks the "CSI effect" (CSI Files/Detroit News)

The House Effect: Are Real Patients Misled by TV Docs?

TIME magazine on whether real patients are mislded by TV series like House, and Grey's Anatomy.

... To most viewers, especially those in medical training, it's clear that such TV dramas only vaguely resemble legitimate medical environments. Indeed, in the 2008 survey, medical and nursing students said they did not draw any significant professional lessons from the programs. But the study's authors questioned whether mere exposure to the shows — and the slippery ethics presented in them — may still subtly affect doctors' or patients' attitudes toward the practice of medicine.

Read full article.

Study debunks the "CSI Effect"

The belief that "CSI" and similar programs has led juries to acquit defendants is nonexistent, according to a new study in the Vanderbilt University Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law.

[The Detroit News via TV Tattle]

Related: - The CSI effect

Britain hosts the first-ever "The Wire" conference

Academics from around the world attended the "The Wire as Social Science Fiction?" conference over the weekend in Leeds, discussing topics like "Omar: Ethics, Power and Performativity."

Academics from Oxford, Harvard, Vanderbilt and the University of Canterbury in New Zealand also discussed whether the HBO series was a real sociological exercise or not.

[The Guardian via TV Tattle]

Too much TV 'turns toddlers into bullies'

According to new research, three year-olds who watch more television than average are more likely to become bullies, reports News.scotsman.

A study of more than three thousand mothers found those whose children were most aggressive tended to be those that saw the most programmes – aimed both directly at them or adults.

A contradictory study:

-- TV not to blame for violence, study says

Studies related to toddlers watching TV:

-- Toddlers learn little from TV

-- U.S. babies watching TV, despite warnings

Above Image from the University of Michigan

French TV channel launches "I Kill A Friend" website

A totally immoral new show will launch on French TV Channel 13eme rue. Adverblog reports.

13ème rue is a French Tv channel specialized in thriller, action and supense. They just launched a provocative site titled Je tue un ami (I kill a friend ) rated 16+.

You start by hiring a professional killer to kill one of your friend ...

You give details and a picture of your target, and one of yourself. You will then be able to watch the violent execution, as the site allows a movie personalization, via a 3D integration of the picture.

Your victim receive a mail with a link to the site, and after he has watched the video, he is invited to investigate who is behind this crime, and can possibly release a new sequence.

Sick.

Television — not the Internet — is responsible for worldwide social change

It's not Twitter or Facebook that's reinventing the planet. Eighty years after the first commercial broadcast crackled to life, television still rules our world. All those soap operas might be the ticket to a better future after all. Foreign Policy reports via TV Tattle.

... And it's not earnest educational programming that's reshaping the world on all those TV sets. The programs that so many dismiss as junk -- from song-and-dance shows to Desperate Housewives -- are being eagerly consumed by poor people everywhere who are just now getting access to television for the first time. That's a powerful force for spreading glitz and drama -- but also social change.

How Jack Bauer's TV violence set tone for policymakers

It is easy to forget how the atmosphere in Washington after September 11, 2001, allowed policymakers to cite Jack Bauer, the fictional hero of Fox TV's 24, as some sort of moral compass.

Bauer, who used torture to extract information that prevented the slaughter of innocents, was cited by the likes of Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security Secretary, to justify policies including “enhanced interrogation techniques”. The Times Online reports.

To give the theory an academic sheen Alan Dershowitz, a law professor at Harvard, President Obama's alma mater, set out “the ticking-bomb scenario” in 2002 in which a terrorist who has planted a nuclear device receives some robust questioning.

Seven years later the publication of more than 100 pages of clinical legal prose explaining how far interrogators could go in slamming a suspect's head against a wall (albeit one designed to reduce the possibility of lasting injury) make deeply disturbing reading.

Read full article.

[via TV Tattle]

TV themes more popular than hymns at funerals

TV theme tunes and pop songs are now more popular than traditional hymns at funerals, a new survey reveals, reports Ananova.

A survey of 30,000 funerals conducted last year found that hymns were now the most popular requests at only 35% of services.

My Way by Frank Sinatra was the most popular, followed by Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midler and Time To Say Goodbye by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman.

Priests reject one in 10 requests, including for AC/DC's Highway To Hell and Another One Bites The Dust by Queen.

Messages With a Mission, Embedded in TV Shows

Among the many wonderful ways the The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation spends money for good causes, one of their projects is less well known: Influencing public attitude through popular TV shows.

It is less well known as a behind-the-scenes influencer of public attitudes by helping to shape story lines and insert messages into popular entertainment like the television shows “ER,” “Law & Order: SVU” and “Private Practice.” The foundation’s messages on H.I.V. prevention, surgical safety and the spread of infectious diseases have found their way into these shows.

Now the Gates Foundation is set to expand its involvement and spend more money on influencing popular culture through a deal with Viacom.

Read full article.

Pupil TV habits concern teachers

Ninety per cent of teachers say some pupils are imitating the language and behaviour of reality television stars, a survey for a teaching union suggests, reports the BBC.

Three quarters also think pupils are behaving more aggressively as a consequence, the survey found.

Reality TV show Big Brother was singled out as a bad example by two thirds of teachers questioned by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.

More teachers thought that television had a greater influence on children's behaviour than computers and video games.

Comedy pilots reflect recession

A group of friends gets fired on the same day. Troubled cops check into a halfway home. A Wall Street executive loses his job and has to reconnect with his small-town family.

Laughing yet? Those are a few log lines for next fall's TV pilots -- the comedy pilots.

Networks are looking at recession-friendly ideas for their new half-hours, with many projects embracing characters in crisis and avoiding office settings.

[via The Hollywood Reporter and The Live Feed]

Happy endings on TV are no guarantee that networks will live happily ever after By James Hibberd

From the The Hollywood Reporter.

Producers on current shows are being told to keep their subject matter light, as if writers should use the Dow to calculate each episode's pathos-to-comedy ratio. One need only glance at next season's TV drama pilots to see that networks are banking on traditional closed-ended procedural dramas that have the potential to provide satisfying happy endings on a weekly basis.

Programmers forget that the content trend toward darker and serialized shows -- the one now ebbing out of style -- wasn't born out of the stock market peak of 2007. It came after 9/11 and the bursting of the Internet bubble, during the previous period of stock-market lows.

Fox's "24," FX's "The Shield," ABC's "Lost" and Sci Fi's "Battlestar Galactica" helped usher in an era of dark, complex, groundbreaking, critically acclaimed and conspiratorial action dramas that were major hits for their networks.

The point isn't that dark times produce more gritty, realistic hits. The point is that recession-era successes are just as likely to reflect the mood of the country as to act as a lighthearted tonic. Truly escapist TV is any show that's so compelling viewers forget they're on the couch.

The "Americans want escapism and happy endings" mantra is wishful thinking. With the broadcast ratings woes, it's TV executives who want to escape.

Watching TV gives first aid clues

Watching TV shows like Casualty and ER makes people confident enough to try and resuscitate people in real life, a survey has suggested, reports the BBC. The poll of just under 2,000 people found one in five would try.

Not everyone agrees it's a good idea.

An article in TV Squad last August, reported that a doctor's group in Italy was so upset by the inaccuracies in American medical shows such as Scrubs, Grey's Anatomy, ER and House, that want Italian broadcasters to refrain from airing these shows at all, lest they prompt people to take medicine into their own hands.

Related:

-- Medical Dramas a source of health information for audiences

-- Medical TV 'feeds health fears'

-- Study: ‘ER’ Episodes Influence Viewers Health Knowledge

-- Scrubs, Grey's Anatomy may be banned in Italy

PTC outraged by 'Nip/Tuck' self-mutilation. Rightly so

The Parents Television Council has (rightly so) objected to an episode of "Nip/Tuck" " (surely they've not objected to just one episode). The scene in question, video here, "depicts a woman using an electric carving knife to cut off her own breast."

Not content with depictions or descriptions of bestiality, incestuous necrophilia, or blood-soaked stabbings, the narcissistic sociopaths behind the production and distribution of Nip/Tuck have chosen to establish yet another low-point in the history of television. Tuesday’s episode portrayed sickening and bloody images of a woman who takes a mastectomy into her own hands in the crowded lobby of a doctor’s office.

... Most Fortune-500 advertisers who have purchased advertising on Nip/Tuck in prior years are no longer doing so, and we believe their rationale is that the program’s content does not reflect well on their corporate brands,” Winter concluded. PTC President Tim Winter said.

[The Live Feed via The Hollywood Reporter]

Grey's Anatomy prompts penile Google Search

In case you missed Grey's Anatomy last Thursday, Dr. Mark Sloan suffered a rather compromising and cringe-inducing injury to his pelvic region, reports The Telegraph.

To put it bluntly, he endured a penile fracture – and the resultant spotlight thrown onto that particular affliction has prompted a flurry of internet searches on the subject.

The Daily Telegraph reports that as of Friday, "broken penis" and "penile fracture" were two of the three most Googled items. A search on Google Trends revealed that "penile fracture" was the seventh most popular search in the US as of Friday afternoon.

[via The National Post]

The CSI Effect

An interesting read from Neatorama on the "CSI effect" in courtrooms. Excerpts:

The "CSI effect" occurs primarily inside the courtroom. Its first incarnation was referred to as the Perry Mason effect, based on the popular fictional defense attorney's trademark ability to clear his client by coercing the guilty party into confessing on the witness stand. During Mason's TV heyday, from the 1950s to the '80s, many prosecutors complained that juries were hesitant to convict defendants without that "Perry Mason moment" of a confession on the stand - which in real life is very, very rare.

After Perry Mason went off the air, a new kind of law enforcement program appeared: the scientific police procedural. Along with shows such as NCIS, Diagnosis: Murder, and Bones, CSI focuses on forensic evidence and lab work as the primary means of catching killers.

... The main problem caused by the CSI effect: Juries now expect conclusive forensic evidence. According to Staff Sergeant Peter Abi-Rashed, a homicide detective from Hamilton, Ontario, "Juries are asking, 'Can we convict without DNA evidence?' Of course they can. It's called good, old-fashioned police work and overwhelming circumstantial evidence." In the worst-case scenarios, guilty people may be set free because a jury wasn't impressed with evidence that - as recently as the 1990s - would have led to a conviction.

In fact, many forensic experts find themselves on the stand explaining to a jury why they don't have scientific evidence. Some lawyers have even started asking potential jurors if they watch CSI. If so, they may have to be reeducated.

Read full article.

Truman Syndrome: 21st century plague?

More and more people in the world believe their life is nothing more than a reality show –surroundings are just decorations, events are script-written and staged, and people around are actors. Psychologists say this delusion named ‘Truman Syndrome’ has become the ‘syndrome of the 21st century.’ Russia Today reports.

Joel and Ian Gold have dubbed the phenomenon two years ago, referring to a 1998 film, ‘
The Truman Show’, in which the main character realises his whole life is a TV show broadcasted 24/7.

Britain’s The Daily Telegraph daily cites them as saying “The self-exposure, instant fame, culture peddled by reality shows, social networking internet sites such as Facebook and – above all – the home video-sharing website YouTube, has provided a "perfect storm" for vulnerable people, encouraging them to put their fantasies on a global stage.”

At the same time, the researchers do not claim that it is “a new form of mental illness” or “these people would be well if there was no YouTube.”

The Gold brothers say the delusion is difficult to treat, as those who suffer it are sure they can trust no one, and that their doctors are actors too.

Read full article.

'Dexter' Allegedly Inspired Murder in Edmonton

Dexter’s name came into the spotlight after an Edmonton filmmaker was charged with first-degree murder in the death of a 38-year-old Johnny Brian Altinger. buddy.tv reports.

Back in August, the accused Mark Twitchell wrote on his Facebook site’s status notation, “Mark has way too much in common with Dexter Morgan,” referring to the titular character of the Showtime series. On October 31, Twitchell was arrested after police retrieved a script for House of Cards, a short horror film he wrote about a serial killer who murders a cheating husband after pretending to be a woman through online communication and later luring him in.

Meanwhile, the case has been put over until November 26, as the Canadian Press reports that the 29-year-old Twitchell did not appear in court on Wednesday.

... University of Victoria pop culture expert Kim Blank explains that pop culture is pervasive, and that through media, it can greatly influence the minds of some individuals.

Sex on TV Increases Teen Pregnancy, Says Report

Researchers at the Rand Corporation say they have documented for the first time how exposure to racy content can influence teen pregnancy rates. They found that teens exposed to the most sexual content on TV were twice as likely as teens watching less of this material to become pregnant before they reach age 20.

[via TIME]

Medical Dramas a source of health information for audiences

New research suggests that prime-time medical dramas such as "Grey's Anatomy" and "House" may also be an important source of health information for their audiences.

The Kaiser Foundationn analyzed an entire "Grey's" episode, and found that viewers retained the show's medical information weeks after watching.

Link to study: Hollywood & Health: Health Content in Entertainment Television

[ABCNews via TV Tattle]

Fun - Scrubs, Grey's Anatomy may be banned in Italy - lest they prompt people to take medicine into their own hands.

Too much information - Medical TV 'feeds health fears' - A taste for television hospital drama might make you more fearful about your own health, say Belgian psychologists.

Meanness appears to rub off on viewers

Researchers have long known that watching violence on TV or in movies ratchets up aggression, but what about watching people being mean to one another? Could watching Mean Girls make you as aggressive as watching Kill Bill?

A new study by professor Sarah Coyne and colleagues at Brigham Young University suggests the answer is yes. USA Today reports.

"... Coyne says the findings suggest parents should pay more attention to relational aggression and perhaps even push to make it part of movie and TV ratings. "Everyone's concerned about violence in the media, as they should be, but we're missing out on lots of violence out there," she says. "We need to look at these other types of aggression out there because we know that they're having an effect on aggression."

The study is in November's Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

In political chill, U.S. entertainment is hot

The image of the United States abroad may have taken a beating in the past few years, but the longstanding appeal of American popular culture has not dimmed. Indeed it appears to have grown stronger lately, even in places like the Middle East, where opposition to American foreign policy is particularly rampant. An insightful article by Tim Arango for the IHT.

"Shows like ''CSI'' and ''House'' now dominate prime-time viewing in parts of Europe, and Hollywood movies routinely sell more tickets overseas than in the United States.

''What's interesting about the last eight years is that polls show a decline in American attractiveness,'' says Joseph Nye Jr., the Harvard professor who coined the phrase ''soft power'' in 1989 to refer to the ways beyond military muscle that America influences the world. ''But then you ask the follow-up questions and you see that American culture remains attractive, that American values remain attractive.

''Which is the opposite of what the president has said - that they hate us for who we are and what we believe in.''

... From an Egyptian man in a focus group conducted by Steven Kull, on International Policy Attitudes: ''I do respect and appreciate American culture and its technology, I welcome that, but not the bad side of its culture, not what contradicts my religious beliefs and with Islam.''

Medical TV 'feeds health fears'

A taste for television hospital drama might make you more fearful about your own health, say psychologists, writes the BBC.

"Belgian researchers said the tragedies and medical horrors played out on ER, Casualty and Holby City may have a subliminal influence.

They quizzed 1,300 teenagers about their viewing habits, and found worries increased among those watching more medical drama.

A UK expert said fretting about illness was particularly common in teenagers.

The three year research project was presented to a British Psychological Societymeeting in Bath on Wednesday.

The level of health fear measured in the teenagers grew by as much as 10% after a diet of hospital programs, and girls appeared to be more affected than boys. "

Scrubs, Grey's Anatomy may be banned in Italy

According to TV Squad, a leading doctor's group in Italy is so upset by the inaccuracies in American medical shows such as Scrubs, Grey's Anatomy, ER and House, that they believe Italian broadcasters should refrain from airing these shows at all, lest they prompt people to take medicine into their own hands.

"Annalisa Silvestro, president of the NFMC says that "These programs are teaching viewers inaccurate views on medicine," and that "They are spreading misinformation."

However there's no word so far as to whether or not Italian broadcasters are actually taking this seriously."

Reality TV may be turning teens into their parents

The countless hours teens spend watching oversexed television shows like The Bachelor and The O.C. may actually make them more like their parents -- at least when it comes to dating, according to New Scientist.

Forget Gossip, Girl; the Buzz Is About the Clothes

The New York Times has written an interesting piece on the influence of "Gossip Girl" and teen fashion and how the show’s sense of style is having a broader impact, even according to Stephanie Solomon, fashion director for Bloomingdale’s, who claims “The show has had a profound influence on retail."

"Fans stride into boutiques bearing magazine tear sheets that feature members of the cast and ask for their exact outfits. Or they order scoop-neck tops and hobo bags by following e-commerce links from the show’s Web site.

Although the series has had only middling success in the ratings, in stylistic terms it “may well be the biggest influence in the youth culture market,” said Stephanie Meyerson, a trend spotter for Stylesight, a trend forecasting company

... Thanks to the point-and-click shopping on its Web site and the fees it charges some brands to be featured in the series, “Gossip Girl” has been able to profit from its power to generate trends. It is not the first show to collect revenues from product tie-ins, but it probably is the first to have been conceived, in part, as a fashion marketing vehicle."

Has the TV drama really supplanted the novel as the 'narrative of our times'?

The BBC's controller of fiction Jane Tranter says it is TV drama that now "gives our lives meaning and shape" rather than literature. [The Guardian via TV Tattle]

"The golden age of television of television drama isn't today, but neither is it yesterday. The golden age is tomorrow," Tranter added, encouraging critics and commentators to take television as seriously as films, literature and high art.

Television drama had supplanted the novel, she said, as the "narrative of our times that gives our lives meaning and shape".

Tranter encouraged writers to respond to the challenge of budget cuts and fewer slots by "thinking small" – taking advantage of the intimacy of the medium - and "thinking big" – considering the possibilities for ambitious stories on a global scale that could attract co-production funding. "

Madison Avenue Likes What It Sees in the Mirror

According to The New York Times, “Mad Men,” is inspiring commercials; designer fashions; window displays in department stores; merchandise like cigarette lighters, CDs and calendars; and a mock issue of the trade publication Advertising Age.

Industry awards shows, exhibitions and parties are also adopting “Mad Men” themes.

... The series was even the subject of an $8,000 question on a recent episode of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” asking which business “Mad Men” is about. When a contestant asked the audience for help, 86 percent answered correctly.

Read full article.

Is "Mad Men" realistic at all?

The New York Times Magazine gives the AMC drama an in-depth profile, in which the ad men who were actually there in the '60s disagree on its accuracy. [via TV t a t t l e . c o m]

"When I hear 'Mad Men,' it's the most irritating thing in the world to me," says legendary art director George Lois. "When you think of the ’60s, you think about people like me who changed the advertising and design worlds. The creative revolution was the name of the game. This show gives you the impression it was all three-martini lunches."

But Jerry Della Femina, another influential ad man, sees it differently: "'Mad Men' accurately reflects what went on. The smoking, the prejudice and the bigotry." For his part, "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner points out the show isn't a history lesson, but "I love the passion of these people."

Posing Like TV Series Characters

Saturday night, my son and his friends thought the lighting in the kitchen was interesting. So they took some pictures, posing like TV series' characters on the covers of DVDs. I think they're just great! A new fad?