"Jenny Jones" fans watching Channel 20 yesterday afternoon got a look at Alan Abel, a major TV hoaxer, as he claimed his wife had used Superglue to attach his penis to his leg after she caught him fooling around ...
The episode had been taped two weeks ago in Chicago, and skeptical researchers for Telepictures, which produces the syndicated program, had already put the episode, titled "Getting Revenge on an Unfaithful Loved One," on hold, pending verification of the medical facts ...
But the program had meanwhile been satellited to Warner Bros. Domestic Television in Los Angeles, distributor of "Jenny Jones." Yesterday morning out in Los Angeles, someone accidentally put the wrong show back up on the satellite for client stations ...
Warner Bros. estimated about 80 stations, including three in the top 10 markets, carried the hoax ...
The hoaxer posed as a man named Bruce Spencer to get on the show. Warner Bros. said he had pulled similar stunts on "Donahue" and "Sally Jessy Raphael." His story led off the disputed episode yesterday ...
Minutes into the transmission, Warner Bros. realized it was the questionable episode and stations were notified by fax not to use it and a substitute show was supplied. Some 60 stations caught it, according to Warner Bros. ...
Channel 20 here was not one of them. "We received the fax about 35 minutes into the broadcast and by then he was long gone," said Sandy Pastoor, programming boss at the Paramount-owned station. "So we just continued with the episode." The station received no phone calls about the episode ...
"We have a very good verification process," Warner Bros. senior vice president Barbara Brogliatti said yesterday. "The episode was on hold pending medical verification. It was just sent out accidentally" ...
"Syndicated shows have been a target of this kind of thing in recent months," according to Brogliatti, "and have had to really clamp down on the entire process. It's now extremely difficult to pull this off; it's much harder to get through Step 1. This time it worked -- and then it didn't work" ...
Now This
President Clinton will take part in a 90-minute MTV forum on the causes of and solutions to rising violence in society. The show will be taped here next Tuesday for airing on MTV that night at 10 ...
An audience of 150 to 200 high school and college students between the ages of 16 and 20 from New York, Washington and some Southern institutions will be chosen by MTV for the program, which will be taped at Kalorama Studios. The "Enough Is Enough Forum With the President" will be moderated by MTV News reporters Tabitha Soren and Alison Stewart ...
The president's June 1992 campaign appearance on MTV as part of the network's "Choose or Lose" political awareness campaign was credited with giving both Clinton and the MTV effort a major boost at the time ...
The forum is part of MTV's Enough Is Enough anti-violence campaign, a "comprehensive effort to address, explore and ultimately find solutions to the growing problems of violence in society" ...
I Feel a PBS Fund-Raising Special Coming On: Tenors Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti have signed for a concert on July 16 to be held in L.A.'s Dodger Stadium on the eve of the World Cup soccer final at the Rose Bowl the next day ...
A taping of the three tenors' 1990 concert at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome (on the eve of the 1990 World Cup), distributed by the American Program Service, has become a major factor in successful PBS fund drives ever since ...
A spokesman for PBS said yesterday that preliminary talks have already begun, with WNET in New York seeking broadcast rights ...
The Warner Music Group, which has exclusive TV and radio broadcast, video and recording rights, estimates that a billion people around the world will tune in to the concert, which will require two waterfalls and 20 Greek columns at the ballpark ...
Early Risers Please Note: James Blair, Hillary Rodham Clinton's wizard commodities adviser, will be interviewed live from Fayetteville, Ark., this morning at 7:09 on ABC's "Good Morning America" ...
And tomorrow at 7:09, GMA's Charlie Gibson will conduct a live interview with Defense Secretary William Perry ...
Part I of the six-part "Middlemarch" offering on PBS's "Masterpiece Theatre" Sunday night averaged a 3.6 rating and a 5 share in 29 of Nielsen's 30 big-city markets ...
That included a 5.5/8 for Channel 26 here. Top audience interest in the adaptation of George Eliot's novel was exhibited in San Francisco and Portland, Ore., each of which registered a 7.1/11. Residents of Charlotte, N.C., who would seem to need a sharp talking-to, attracted a mere 0.7/1 ...
A spokesman for PBS pointed out yesterday that Sunday's modest numbers were, nevertheless, considerably above the season-to-date "Masterpiece Theatre" average of 2.2 ...
Moving Right Along
WETA-TV took another important step yesterday toward realization of its plans to build new headquarters at George Washington University when the D.C. Zoning Commission, by a 5 to 0 vote, gave final approval to plans for construction of the eight-story building ...
However, the $15 million project still faces the objections of Rep. Pete Stark, chairman of the House District of Columbia Committee, who has introduced a bill to block construction ...
The California Democrat contends that an eight-foot "penthouse" planned for the 110-foot-high building at 21st and H streets NW violates the 84-year-old Heights Limits Act ...
Recent Ratingzzz Fun
ABC won Friday night in the national ratings with a 13.5/24 for the night -- more than twice the numbers for NBC, which averaged only a 5.6/10. A special called "Lives in Hazard" averaged just 4.6/8 ...
That translated into a 2.9/5 on Channel 4 ...
Sunday night, according to Nielsen overnight ratings in 30 major cities, the CBS movie "David's Mother" averaged a 15.1/23. A rerun of "Ancient Prophecies" on NBC did a 9.4/15, while the movie "Shadow of Obsession" averaged an 11.4/18 ...
"Memphis Belle" on ABC averaged a 10.7/16 ...
Locally, "David's Mother" did a 16.0/23 on WUSA; "Ancient Prophecies," a 9.9/15, and "Shadow of Obsession" a 12.5/18 on WRC; "Memphis Belle" averaged a 9.4/14 on WJLA. Each national ratingzzz point represents 942,000 TV homes; an overnight point, about 482,000 TV homes; and a local point, 18,554 TV homes ...
NBC Vote of Confidence
A disclaimer, which an NBC spokeswoman described as "probably the largest and most elaborate in network history," appeared again Sunday night before the repeat telecast of "Ancient Prophecies" ...
The program, which made a fairly strong showing against the Grammys on CBS when it first aired in March, focused on ancient and modern-day "prophecies relating to the year 2000" ...
The network's department of program standards "wanted to avoid a 'War of the Worlds' panic," the spokeswoman said. "We were afraid that viewers might take the show to heart and wanted to provide as much of a context as possible," producing the following disclaimer:
"The following is not a news program or a documentary.
"The people appearing on camera are not necessarily experts and are expressing personal opinions only.
"Although significant opposing viewpoints exist, they are not included.
"The information presented represents unsubstantiated anecdotal accounts of events, interpretations of writings, and speculation about the significance of certain predictions.
"Some predictions by the same sources, though not mentioned, have been proven inaccurate.
"Events are dramatized, simulated and re-created."
And finally: "It is not the intention of the broadcasters to suggest that any prophecies are true, and all conclusions about the future, drawn by persons in this program, are purely conjecture" ...