Daytime Emmys love Ellen
NEW YORK -- Ellen DeGeneres's easygoing talk show swept the Daytime Emmy awards last night and ''Jeopardy!" -- with a boost from Ken Jennings's 74-game winning streak -- was honored as best game show.
''General Hospital" won a record-setting eighth Daytime Emmy as the best drama series. Another veteran, Erika Slezak of ''One Life to Live," won best actress in a soap and Christian Jules LeBlanc of ''The Young and the Restless" was named best actor.
DeGeneres was honored by the voters of the National Television Academy as best talk-show host for the first time and ''The Ellen DeGeneres Show" won its second Emmy as best talk show. The show won five Emmys this year overall.
''Oh, man, I love my job," she said. ''It's basically just sitting there and listening to people talking. It's like a bartender."
''Jeopardy!," which was created by Griffin in the 1960s, was honored as best game show for the tenth time.
The Daytime Emmys, held at Radio City Music Hall and televised on CBS, have lost wattage over the years after losing story lines like Susan Lucci's long losing streak. Its ratings last year were less than half what they were in 1997.
Stockard Channing added a Daytime Emmy award to her prime-time Emmy and Tony awards. She performed in ''Jack," a children's special on Showtime.
Greg Rikaart of ''The Young and the Restless" and Natalia Livingston of ''General Hospital" both won their first Emmys for supporting actors in a soap opera.
David Yago of ''The Young and the Restless" won an Emmy as a young soap actor. Chefs Bobby Flay and Michael Chiarello finished in a tie for the best service show Emmy.
'CSI' finale buries 'The Apprentice'
CBS went into the Nielsen stratosphere Thursday with more than 30 million viewers turning out for the two-hour fifth-season finale of ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" directed by Quentin Tarantino.
The ''CSI" landslide made it an uphill climb for the 9 p.m. finale of NBC's ''The Apprentice," which brought in 13.7 million viewers, according to preliminary
In the ''Apprentice" finale, Donald Trump chose one of his own kind, picking a real estate entrepreneur as his first female apprentice. Kendra Todd, 26, from Boynton Beach, Fla., prevailed in the derby for a six-figure-salary job in the Trump organization over runner-up Tana Goertz, 37, a business owner, sales executive, and mother of two from Iowa.
Viewership for the extended episode of ''CSI" peaked in the final half-hour at 35.1 million viewers.
At 10 p.m., however, more people watched CBS's ''Without a Trace" (21.9 million) than NBC's veteran ''ER" (18.6 million) though ''ER" did better in the adults 18-49 demographic. For ''E.R.," the heart-tugging 11th season finale marked the final appearance of original cast member Noah Wyle.
Material from Hollywood Reporter and Reuters was used in this report.
'Shield' expected back for 5th season
''The Shield" has four episodes remaining in its fourth season, but the gritty police drama is a lock to return for a fifth year on FX.
For ''Shield" creator-executive producer Shawn Ryan, FX's vote of confidence comes on the heels of CBS's pickup of ''The Unit," a drama about an elite Special Ops unit that Ryan is executive producing alongside playwright David Mamet.
''Shield" is having a strong fourth year, rebounding from the dip it took in Season 3. So far this season, ''Shield" is averaging 3.2 million viewers in the Tuesday 10 p.m. slot, up from its third-season average of 2.5 million viewers.
The drama on ''Shield" has gotten a boost this season from the introduction of Glenn Close as tough-as-nails police Captain Monica Rawling, who has tangled with rogue cop Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis). Close will not be back for the fifth season.
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
'P. Diddy' series joins late-night
HBO said yesterday that it will launch a new late-night series, ''P. Diddy Presents the Bad Boys of Comedy," on June 10.
The nine-episode series, which will air at 11 p.m. Fridays, features up-and-coming urban comedians performing before an audience at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. Sean ''P. Diddy" Combs will make an appearance in each half-hour episode, while rapper-comic Doug E. Fresh will introduce the acts, and DJ Mr. C will provide the music.
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
