Day: May 6, 2026

Ted Turner’s death at 87: the gambler cable needed

There was a time when cable-TV was more than a swap meet or a corporate shell game.
It was an adventure and it needed risk-takers. It needed people like Ted Turner, who died today (Wednesday, May 6) at 87.
Turner eventually merged his empire — CNN, TBS, TNT, TCM — into Warner Brothers, then regretted it. Warner has since been part of three more mega-deals..
Huge fortunes have been made by men whose names we’ll quickly forget. Turner will always be remembered.
I’ve written about him in my book-in-progress, “Television, and How It Got That Way.” Here are those portions: Read more…

This is Broadway’s time, on TV and beyond

For much of the year, the world sort of forgets about Broadway. Then comes a two-month surge.
In New York, that means a fresh world of dancing cats, rocking vampires and an entire village consumed by show tunes.
And for the rest of us. watching on TV sets? First, PBS delivers a four-Friday stretch of music, old (“Top Hat” is shown here) and fairly new. Then CBS has the Tony Awards. Read more…

Best-bets for May 8: women’s place, then and now

1) “Suffs,” 9 p.m., PBS. For the next two Fridays, PBS gives us full-scale, Broadway-style musicals. Next week is the silly fun of “Top Hat,” but this one (shown here) is an involving look at the drive that brought women the vote in 1920. Shaina Taub won Tonys for her book and her music score; she also does a solid job as Alice Paul, an unrelenting American hero. Read more…