Audience

Baltimore radio personality Bob Lopez, an iconoclastic newsman and talk-show host at 98 Rock (WIYY-FM) for 27 years and member of its popular Kirk, Mark & Lopez morning team, died of lung cancer yesterday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. He was 52. Mr. Lopez, who preferred to be called by his last name, had first informed the station's listeners of his illness in an on-air interview from a hospital bed 14 months ago. He had since undergone chemotherapy and other treatment while continuing to take part in the morning show -- often using his illness as a source of humor -- when his health permitted.

Lotfy Nathan spent some five years putting together his film about West Baltimore's dirt-bike culture. Now, with national acclaim for "12 O'clock Boys" promising to turn it into one of the year's breakout documentaries after a February premiere at the South by Southwest arts festival in Austin, Texas, he's happily basking in the acclaim. "The reception in Austin was incredible," Nathan said last week from Toronto, where the film was being shown at the annual Hot Docs festival. "It was more than I could have asked for. " This week, a distribution deal with independent film distributors Oscilloscope Laboratories safely in hand, the Maryland Institute College of Art -educated Nathan is bringing his film home.

I have to admit that even though "Second Hand News" is a great way to kick off a night of what was clearly going to be hit after hit of A+, No. 1, solid-gold Fleetwood Mac tunes, hearing Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks sing the first few measures put a little stone in my throat. Lindsey sounded ragged and rough: Did he give too much to Madison Square Garden the night before? Perhaps over-carousing? Does Lindsey deign to carouse? And Stevie, oh Stevie, the top range of her uniquely fluid yet meaty voice clipped.

Country singer Carrie Underwood will replace Faith Hill this fall in singing "Waiting All Day for Sunday Night," the anthem of NBC's top-rated weekly football telecast. The Sunday night broadcast, which averaged an audience of 21.8 million to become prime-time TV's highest rated show, is one the most skillfully and carefully packaged events in popular culture. "It's going to be the same song, same lyrics, but it's going to be with my flair," the Grammy-Award-winning singer said in a teleconference Tuesday.

After the disappointing culling last week, we're down to the final 12, and from here on out, only audience votes will help our favorites move through -- no more coaches' saves. I'm running out of things to say about these musicians, so here's how it works this week: vote for your favorites. If they make the cut, they make the cut. If they don't, they don't, and since this is entirely in your hands, dear audience, it's entirely likely that a coach will NOT have a representative in the final rounds.

One can only hope the Baltimore Ravens do a better job of clock management than the Maryland Democratic Party did during its annual pre-session legislative lunch gathering Tuesday. Gov. Martin O'Malley, the party's leader and the subject of fulsome praise from state legislative leaders and congressional representatives alike, had to sit through extended remarks by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, House Speaker Michael E. Busch, five of Maryland's six Democratic U.S. representatives and U.S. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin before getting the chance to speak.

The Virgin Mobile FreeFest drew its largest audience this year, organizers said Saturday. About 50,000 people were projected to have attended the festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion Saturday, said spokeswoman Audrey Fix Schaefer. That's a record audience for what was already Maryland's largest outdoor music festival. The turnout was remarkable because just a couple of days before organizers "were close to canceling" this year's event over the recent weather, said Virgin founder Richard Branson.  Last year, an estimated 40,000 people attended the festival, which was headlined by M.I.A.

Gov. Martin O'Malley's schedule takes him to Denver on Wednesday, where he will be in the audience for first presidential debate. Maryland's governor has been one of President Barack Obama's top surrogates this season and will be on hand Wednesday night in the "spin rooms" to try and shape the post-debate news coverage. He'll also likely do some national interviews before the debate. O'Malley plans to leave for Colorado after the Board of Public Works Wednesday and return Thursday morning, according to a source close to the governor.

When the new interns arrive in the State House reception room, Gov. Martin O'Malley puts them to a test. He directs them to look at a wall displaying portraits of Maryland's most recent governors and tells them to name as many as they can. About half, he says, are unable to identify O'Malley's immediate predecessor and most recent opponent, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. Of those who recognize Ehrlich, half are stumped by Gov. Parris N. Glendening....

"VEEP," the widely-praised Maryland-made comedy starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, got off to a solid start Sunday night with an audience of 1.7 million viewers for two showings. The 10 p.m. showing opposite AMC's  "Mad Men"  drew 1.4 million viewers. "VEEP"  drew 300,000 more viewers than the finale of "Eastbound and Down,"  which aired the previous week in that timeslot for HBO. "Girls,"  another critically-acclaimed HBO comedy, opened the week before with 810,000 viewers in its 10:30 p.m.Sunday timeslot and 1.1 million for two showings.

There's something about "Les Miserables" that keeps me coming back. It's not that "Les Miz," running through Sunday at the Hippodrome Theatre , is my favorite musical. Far from it. It's all too easy to point out the technical flaws in Claude-Michel Schonberg's melodies (bombastic) and Herbert Kretzmer's lyrics (unsurprising). The critics have been making these arguments for the past 27 years, and for the past 27 years, audiences have been ignoring the critics. Producer Cameron Mackintosh's much-hyped new staging incorporates brighter costumes and screen projections to simulate such effects as Paris' underground sewers.

I have to admit that even though "Second Hand News" is a great way to kick off a night of what was clearly going to be hit after hit of A+, No. 1, solid-gold Fleetwood Mac tunes, hearing Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks sing the first few measures put a little stone in my throat. Lindsey sounded ragged and rough: Did he give too much to Madison Square Garden the night before? Perhaps over-carousing? Does Lindsey deign to carouse? And Stevie, oh Stevie, the top range of her uniquely fluid yet meaty voice clipped.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told a Baltimore audience Tuesday night that the world's challenges have never been greater, nor come with such speed, and he advocated intervention in struggling countries by powers such as Great Britain and the United States. "I don't think there's been a more difficult time to be a political leader than now," Blair, who left office in 2007, told an audience of 2,800 at Loyola University Maryland. He described challenges posed by globalization and ever-evolving technology and said that "often the best short-term politics is in collision with the best long-term policy.

There's a meme going around the Internet that compares “Game of Thrones” with “The Walking Dead.” The zombie show, the meme says, makes you hate its characters before killing them. “Thrones,” however, makes you like them. And that is, I think, objectively true. Even this show's vilest characters (the Lannisters, for instance) all have redeeming qualities. After spending enough time with them, you being to surprise yourself by gravitating toward characters you once reviled.

Here's an all-too common scenario at a bar: A random topic - be it essential new-wave albums or Martin Scorsese's best films - comes up and an expert suddenly emerges. The know-it-all rapidly cites a dizzying array of research and anecdotes, all in the name of appearing smarter than everyone else. The person also usually hopes no one double-checks the claims. "You always have somebody who knows way too much about something, but then they hope you're not going to look [facts] up," said Patrick Storck, a 37-year-old living in Belair-Edison.

A few years ago, the History Channel was best known to some as a punch line on HBO's “The Sopranos.” Remember mobster Tony Soprano sitting alone late at night in his New Jersey McMansion eating ice cream and watching World War II documentaries about Adolph Hitler and Winston Churchill? These days, no one is laughing at the History Channel - not with audiences like the 13.1 million viewers who tuned in last Sunday for the first two hours of “The Bible,” a 10-hour miniseries that runs through Easter Sunday.

So much for the notion of an American public that's supposed to be turned off by presidential politics in 2012. A huge audience of 67.2 million watched Wednesday night's debate between GOP candidate Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama. That is up 28 percent from the first debate in 2008 between Obama and Sen. John McCain. While the big audience seems like good news for democracy, it's not so good for Obama -- who turned in a dismal performance

The numbers are preliminary overnights, but based on the 6.0 rating for last night's prime-time game between the Ravens and 49ers, the NFL Network is declaring it the largest Thursday night audience in the channel's history. A tweet from network spokesman Dan Masonson this morning also said the audience for last night's 16 to 6 Ravens vistory was up 43 percent from that of last Thanksgiving. This is the network's sixth season of prime-time Thursday night games. Since it is a holiday weekend, it could be a while before we get more definitive ratings.

Sunday's Super Bowl was the most viewed show in U.S. television history, according to Nielsen figures provided by CBS. A total audience of 164.1 million saw the Ravens victory over the San Francisco 49ers. The average audience for Sunday's game was 108.4 million viewers, which was the third largest average audience behind the last two Super Bowls. Total viewership is generally considered the benchmark figure. Here's the CBS release: The 2012 NFL season concluded with another television milestone as Super Bowl XLVII on CBS reached a total audience of 164.1 million viewers (6:32-8:41 and 9:11-10:47 PM, ET)

The Ravens Super Bowl victory over the San Francisco 49ers was the highest rated telecast in Nielsen meter history, according to preliminary ratings from CBS. With almost one out of every two TV homes in the nation tuned to the game, it topped the Green Bay vs. Pittsburgh Super Bowl 2011 game.  The rating excludes the period from 8:45 to 9:15 p.m. when play was stopped because of a blackout in stadium lights. Here's the release from CBS: CBS Sports' coverage of Super Bowl XLVII featuring the BALTIMORE RAVENS, 34-31 win over the SAN FRANCISCO 49ers on Sunday, Feb. 3  (6:30-8:45 PM and 9:15-10:45 PM, ET)