High-definition television displays everything in stunning detail -- too much detail for some TV personalities.
A high-ranking ABC executive told the TV technology website
TVPredictions.com that it's common practice for networks to soften their HD image (sometimes by using specially-made HD camera filters) to make their talent look better. "For years, we've softened the image for certain performers," the executive said in an e-mail to Phillip Swann, President and Publisher of TVPredictions.com. "To do so in HD is just a continuation of that."
Readers of TVPredictions.com complained on the site's message boards that shows like "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams," "Good Morning America" and "Today" don't look as good as most HD programming -- presumably because of covering up the flaws of their hosts. "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" has yet to go the HD route. Swann has referred to her as "not HD-friendly." Ouch.
Diane Sawyer skipped out on a party thrown for Chris Cuomo, Sam Champion and other "Good Morning America" staffers last Friday -- and a source says that it's a sure sign that the news diva is planning on leaving the show soon.
Just as the competition heats up with "Today" after Meredith Vieira's arrival, a Sawyer sayonara could be a difficult blow to the ABC morning property. "The staff took Diane's absence as a clear message she is leaving the show,"
says a source to Rush & Molloy, "and is slowly starting to separate herself from it." Sawyer, say the columnists, had just arrived from interviewing Mel Gibson in his first post-DUI sit-down.
But an ABC rep dismisses any notion of Diane leaving: "She was sick in bed. She called [ABC News chief] David Westin and ['GMA' producer] Jim Murphy to see if she should still come. They urged her stay home."
Princess of Perk Rachael Ray brought her act to talk-show land this morning, and did her best as a chat neophyte to attract, presumably, a younger female audience by welcoming as her very first guest that unmistakable icon of hip young females everywhere ... Diane Sawyer?
Nothing against the always-elegant and estimable Ms. Sawyer, but surely there might've been someone, somewhere who might've added a bit more star sizzle to
the first edition of a nationally-syndicated talk show (Megan Mullally, for instance, had Will Ferrell in skivvies on for her first installment.) Perhaps the boss -- Oprah Winfrey -- didn't want her own appearance tomorrow on the show (and her own premiere) to be overshadowed.
As it was, Ray did her best to combine elements of just about every hosted studio-audience show in existence, including, in descending order of awkwardness, a little coffee-talk time at the top, some eyebrow-raising service segments (cleaning lettuce in the washing machine), and Ray making her trademark quick-prep meals, now whittled down to seven ( from 30) minutes.
Sheryl Crow isn't angry with Lance Armstrong over their break-up, but she clearly misses him immensely, saying that losing Lance was like "having part of your life amputated."
In an exclusive interview following the very public end of her relationship with Armstrong and her battle with breast cancer, Crow told "Good Morning America's" Diane Sawyer that there was a growing divide between her and Armstrong over the last days of their time together, but that she absolutely didn't believe that Armstrong "bailed" on her when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter seemed calm and resolute when talking about the fight to save her life, but certainly made it clear that the seven-time Tour de France winner, to whom she was engaged for five months, still occupied a significant place in her heart.
"You still have that phantom itch, you know, where you wake up and I'll see something and think, 'Oh, I've got to make sure Lance is hip to this band. I've got to put it on his iPod.' And then I remember, 'Oh, wait, you know, that's not my life."
Part II of Sawyer's interview with Crow airs Friday morning.
