Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

apples and offices

Newsday had an interesting story yesterday about how the sudden success of The Office last year on iTunes went a long way toward saving the low-rated show from cancellation. (Newsday: “How iTunes Saved ‘The Office’” - 11/01/06)

“I’m not sure that we’d still have the show on the air” without the iTunes boost, says Angela Bromstead, president of NBC Universal Television Studio, which owns and produces “The Office.” “The network had only ordered so many episodes, but when it went on iTunes and really started taking off, that gave us another way to see the true potential other than just Nielsen. It just kind of happened at a great time.”

(Link found via TV Squad, which apparently is providing all my blogfodder for the night. They do good work.)

In related news, I’m really excited about NBC’s upcoming new Thursday night schedule: My Name Is Earl, The Office, Scrubs, 30 Rock and ER. With the possible exception of 30 Rock, which I still haven’t gotten around to watching, it’s all great stuff. Thank goodness for DVRs, though; I wouldn’t want to camp out on the couch for three hours of programming, no matter how good it might be. (So, in the end, since I’ll watch it all later anyway, the fact that these shows are presented as a big block of cool programming doesn’t really make a difference, huh?)