The End
Of ‘Anchorwoman’
After just one night of the new reality series “Anchorwoman,” the Fox network had seen enough, canceling it as soon as the dismal ratings came in. The show, which followed the efforts of a former swimsuit model, Lauren Jones, right, to become a news anchor at a television station in Texas, pulled in only 2.7 million viewers. Preston Beckman, the executive in charge of scheduling for Fox, said in a telephone interview yesterday, “We’re getting close to the start of the fall season and this is not a time for us to allow our circulation to be going down.” Fox has won every week of the summer in the ratings for viewers between the ages of 18 and 49, the competition that Fox, ABC and NBC all use to determine the ratings winner. But that streak will come to an end when this week’s numbers are calculated, Mr. Beckman said. Last week Fox broadcast the finales of its two biggest summer hits, “Hell’s Kitchen” and “So You Think You Can Dance.” If it had somehow managed to match the success of those other reality shows with “Anchorwoman,” the network might have been able to keep that streak going. But Fox executives never expected it to, and the show underperformed their modest expectations, Mr. Beckman said. He added that Fox had produced only five half-hour episodes of “Anchorwoman” and used two of them Wednesday night. BILL CARTER
Vindicated in Court
David Hasselhoff, left, the former star of “Baywatch” and “Knight Rider,” accepted libel damages from the publisher of magazines that accused him of being drunk and abusive in a Hollywood nightclub, The Associated Press reported yesterday. Northern & Shell PLC, publisher of the British edition of OK! magazine, and Northern & Shell North America Ltd., publisher of the American edition, “accept that their allegations were false,” Mr. Hasselhoff’s lawyer said in London. “Each defendant has agreed to publish an apology in their magazine and together have agreed to pay the claimant substantial damages.” The amount of damages in the out-of-court settlement was not disclosed.
Dr. Rock
The guitarist and songwriter Brian May, below, completed his doctorate in astrophysics three decades after he put academia aside to form the rock group Queen, The Associated Press reported. He was awarded his qualification Thursday by London’s Imperial College after submitting his 48,000-word thesis, “Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud,” which seeks to prove that planets and dust clouds in the solar system orbit in the same direction. Mr. May was an astrophysics student at Imperial College when he joined Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor to form Queen in 1970, but dropped out as the glam-rock band became one of Britain’s biggest music groups in the 1970s, with hits including “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Will Rock You.” Following Mr. Mercury’s death in 1991, Mr. May released two solo albums. He will be formally presented with his doctorate in May at a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
A Landmark Turns 30
Symphony Space, which opened in January 1978, announced its 2007-8 schedule, as well as a tribute to its coming 30th anniversary. Among the highlights: there will be fall, winter and spring film series with John Sayles, Jonathan Demme and Jim Jarmusch as curators; Stephen King will read from “The Best American Short Stories 2007” on Oct. 10; a 30th-anniversary celebration will be held on Jan. 10; and Ursula Oppens will celebrate Elliott Carter’s 100th birthday on Jan. 17. Last but not least, the Wall to Wall Bach program, on May 17, will pay homage to the first Wall to Wall presentation, which was also the first program ever mounted at Symphony Space, a formerly boarded-up theater on the Upper West Side that became its home. Information: symphonyspace.org.
Ballet on Bravo
The Bravo Network of Canada will broadcast “The Fiddle and the Drum,” choreographed by the Alberta Ballet’s artistic director, Jean Grand-Maître, on Oct. 22. The work, which had its premiere in Calgary, Alberta, in February, features 10 songs by Joni Mitchell and is danced before projections of her paintings. In June, the National Ballet of Canada, in partnership with the Luminato multimedia festival, will present its Toronto premiere.
Pinault Picks a Chief
François Pinault, the French billionaire, has picked Monique Veaute, an art-events manager, to run his Venice exhibition location, the 18th-century Palazzo Grassi, and to develop a new contemporary arts center in a disused customs building, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. She succeeds Jean-Jacques Aillagon, a former French culture minister, who was named president of the Château de Versailles in June. Ms. Veaute, 56, lives in Rome, where in 1986 she helped create Fondation RomaEuropa, which organizes a dance and theater festival.
Footnotes
The Cure, which a few weeks ago postponed its album from the fall to the spring, yesterday postponed its Sept. 23 concert at Madison Square Garden to a date still to be set. “With all apologies for any inconvenience or disappointment it may cause,” the band, whose lead singer is Robert Smith, right, said in a statement, “we have made a decision to move the September/October 2007 North American Cure shows to April/May 2008.”... Lindsay Lohan, who was charged on Thursday with misdemeanors in two cases of driving while intoxicated, pleaded guilty to two counts of being under the influence of cocaine and pleaded no contest to counts of reckless driving and driving with a blood alcohol level higher than .08, The Associated Press reported. Under a plea agreement, she will serve 24 hours in jail. ... The Venice Film Festival will establish a prize in honor of the Japanese director Takeshi Kitano, to be awarded for career achievement and innovation, Variety reported. Mr. Kitano won the festival’s Golden Lion award in 1997 for “Hana-bi.”
