
SO MUCH TV TO WATCH, SO LITTLE TIME. If you can't even keep up with your TiVo recording, you may want to visit Yahoo's "Prime Time in No Time: A Recap of Last Night's Shows."
The new Web series is hosted by comedian and Pittsburgh native Frank Nicotero.
"Prime Time in No Time" is what E! network's "Talk Soup" was to TV talk shows -- great for people who want to keep current with their watercooler chat topics but who hate themselves for spending so much time watching TV.
"Ideally, what Yahoo wants is the people who get to work at 8 a.m. Let's admit it. No one starts working as soon as they sit at their desk," Nicotero says. "In two minutes they can get some highlights from 'Lost' that they might not have had time to watch last night.
"I saved you an hour of your life."
The "Prime Time in No Time" episodes are two-minute recaps of a handful of the previous night's shows, with Nicotero commenting and cracking jokes.
New episodes post Monday through Friday. The site archives the previous four days' episodes.
The Yahoo team decides beforehand what shows should be highlighted, based on whether they're premieres, their popularity and buzz factor. "We always want to lead with what's going to be the watercooler moment," Nicotero says.
Featured shows are a mix of network and cable offerings. Right now they're heavy on reality series. But Nicotero says viewers will be seeing more scripted series featured as they return to production following the end of the writers' strike.
Nicotero blogs about the shows on the site, adding his comic take: "I'm so obsessed with March Madness that I apply bracketology to everything. So I'll take Mario and Guttenberg [on "Dancing With the Stars"] in my male bracket. Two females round out my Final Four tomorrow."
Nicotero, who lives in Los Angeles' Studio City section, watches the East Coast feeds starting at 5 p.m. Pacific time, starts writing his comments, and then tapes the nightly episode around 10 p.m. The video is edited in the wee hours and posted early the next morning.
Nicotero was in Pittsburgh to take part in a recent roast for WDVE-FM morning host Jim Krenn when he got the call telling him he had the job. He's delighted to be getting paid to watch TV.
"This is probably the first full-time job I've had since National Record Mart," where he worked in the late '80s. "The best part of it is when my girlfriend comes in to the living room and I'm watching TV. I'm like, shh, I'm working. I have to watch 'American Idol.' It's my job, OK?"
Nicotero has been doing stand-up for 20 years, and the Yahoo gig means adjusting his performing schedule. Since it's a weekday show, he's still free on Friday and Saturday for comedy club work.
While there are plans to add new elements, such as walk-on guests, keeping the Web episodes short is also important, he says. "The research shows that people like seeing something around two minutes or under two minutes. That's what's happened to our attention span."
Nicotero enjoys getting instant feedback from people, although at the moment, since the series has only been on for two weeks, "It's mostly my friends calling and ripping on the shirts I'm wearing."
"FROM THE TOP AT CARNEGIE HALL," starting its second TV season on PBS in May, also will launch a stream on the PBS Web site. Season one episodes will be online in April, and the new season's episodes will go online in May.
The public radio and TV series showcases talented young classical musicians.
R.E.M.'S NEW RELEASE "ACCELERATE" will debut online tomorrow, a week before its April 1 release.
Fans will be able to stream the new release in its entirety on iTunes and iLike, plus social networking sites such as Facebook that offer iLike as a music application. The site will also have a video of the band talking about the new album.
iLike is a music/social networking site where users can discover new music and share playlists with others.
THE AUDIENCE FOR ONLINE RADIO CONTINUES TO GROW, according to an annual survey conducted by Arbitron and Edison Media Research.
The study -- "Infinite Dial 2008: Radio's Digital Platforms" -- revealed that 33 million Americans age 12 and older listen to radio over the Internet every week.