NBC
announced its fall schedule today, and among the network's new offerings is a show called
The Singing Bee. Unfortunately, it's not a fake documentary about the later-life cabaret adventures of that girl from Blind Melon's "No Rain" video; instead, this
product of executive wordplay turns out to be a brand-new "finish these lyrics" game show.
Bee's slogan is "You don't have to sing it well; you just have to sing it right," and its official site illustrates that point with a
back-of-the-car YouTube clip that's as unlistenable as its visuals are nausea-inducing. We can only hope that the real thing uses the same sort of fleet camerawork—otherwise, this showcase of people making complete asses out of themselves is going to garner ratings like those seen during the earliest audition rounds of
American Idol, and its run on NBC will never, ever end.
More »
Idolator
What is it with the suits at Vivendi-owned companies demanding that they get kickbacks from every piece of entertainment-related hardware sold? Jeff Zucker of NBC is now complaining about Apple's refusal to engage in a Zune-like deal where the company would get a cut of each iPod sold, saying that the company "sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content." He's also saying that Apple "kill[ed] the music industry in terms of pricing," because surely nothing the record companies themselves could have engaged in could have helped turn off listeners. [