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BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, has signed a contract with a start-up that it has been nurturing through its Labs accelerator programme in a bid to measure audience engagement with its media content. The start-up, known as CrowdEmotion, uses facial coding webcams to capture people’s emotions and see how they react to certain TV shows. The BBC Worldwide Insight team said it plans to run CrowdEmotion trials on a number of BBC TV shows, including Top Gear and Sherlock – two of the organisation's most popular and lucrative series. David Boyle, executive vice president at BBC Worldwide...

We live in a golden age of television. Never before have we had so much quality programming, or so many different ways to view it while sitting on the toilet. However, the things we like so much about the current state of television are actually strangling our favorite shows to death like Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds. #4. Our Favorite Shows Get Terrible Ratings Because We Don't Watch Them When They Air The business model that drives the creation of the shows we like is fairly straightforward: A network pays to make a show, and then we pay them back...

A stunning housecleaning at “The View” has left Whoopi Goldberg driving solo and looking in the rearview mirror at her canned co-hosts. ABC officials said Thursday night big changes were coming to the show, and soon afterward Sherrie Shepherd and Jenny McCarthy took to social media to confirm they were leaving the morning talkfest.

Veteran actress Patsy Byrne – who achieved small screen infamy as ‘Nursie’ in Blackadder II – has died aged 80. According to an announcement in the Telegraph, Byrne passed away on June 17 at Denville Hall – a retirement home for actors – in Hillingdon, London. The actress, who was born in Ashford, Kent, notched up a string of TV and theatre roles in the early part of her acting career. However she is best remembered for her Blackadder role – with the clueless but loyal Nursie (whose real name was actually Bernard), becoming one of the most loved characters...

Public confidence in television news is at an all-time low, according to a survey released today by Gallup. ... only 10 percent said they had “a great deal” of confidence in T.V. news, and 8 percent said they had “quite a lot” of confidence.

Oscilloscopes! Hexadecimal code! 1980s Porsches! This is the world of AMC’s newest period piece, Halt and Catch Fire, which debuted June 1 (watch the full pilot episode here). The network’s next great hope for another Mad Men or Breaking Bad, Halt dives deep into the nerdy early days of the PC, hoping Sunday night TV viewers will go as gaga for Big Blue as they did for Blue Sky. The show transports us back to a fictional 1983, when personal computing was booming in Texas’ Silicon Prairie. We follow a slick visionary, a schmuck engineer, and a wonder-kid coder as...

Comedian Tracy Morgan is in critical condition at a New Brunswick hospital following an early morning accident on the New Jersey Turnpike, according to the New Jersey State Police. State police say the actor/comedian was injured in a crash involving six vehicles that left at least one person dead and several others, including Morgan, with serious injuries.

Ann B. Davis, aka Alice from “The Brady Bunch,” passed away this past weekend. This morning, MSNBC took a moment to remember her — by showing a picture of someone else:

Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan are headed to Washington.... headed to D.C. to talk to Obama in the Blue Room.....

Mindy Kaling took the podium at Harvard Law School's commencement ceremony on Wednesday to receive her honorary legal degree — or so she thought.... Throughout the speech, Kaling touted many lines that might as well been scripted into an episode of 'The Mindy Project,' as said by her character, Mindy Lahiri. "I know what you're probably thinking: Mindy Kaling? Why did they ask her? She's just a pretty Hollywood starlet? What does that quadruple threat know about the law? Sure, she seems really down-to-earth, and pretty but in a totally accessible way, and yeah, she was on People magazine's Most...

Michael Bay’s upcoming TV series The Last Ship on TNT — premiering next month — is the latest in a long line of programs that have featured the U.S. Navy and Marines. From action adventures and comedies to dramas and primetime soaps, the sea services have been represented in almost every genre (even dipping into reality TV, with shows such as Lone Target and Navy SEALs: BUDS Class 234). Some were hits, many were misses.

The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) announced on Wednesday that it had purchased the rights to a documentary series that will follow the life of Michael Sam. Terms were undisclosed, but sources said that negotiations to make the deal took two months. Sam became the first openly gay man to be taken in the NFL draft when he was picked Saturday in the seventh round by the St. Louis Rams. Cameras for the network were with Sam when he received the call that he was drafted and will follow him through training camp as he tries to make the team. The...

A Baltimore television station has been evacuated after someone rammed a truck into the building. That person is now believed to be barricaded in the building. WMAR-TV posted this to its Facebook page, “ALERT | Stay away from ABC2 News studio at 6400 York Road. A man in a truck crashed through the lobby and is potentially armed. Will update as needed.”

On television at least, it looks as if the beat doesn’t go on. The phenomenon of music-based television shows, which have dominated the ratings for more than a decade, seems by nearly every measure to be over or in steep decline. “They flooded the market,” said Simon Cowell, perhaps the individual most responsible for turning amateur singers into superstars, with his roles on “American Idol,” “The X Factor” and “America’s Got Talent.” “There have just been a ton of shows, and something has simply gone awry.”

The handsome football player gets drafted by an NFL team, plants an emotional kiss on his sweetheart and gives sportscasts an emotional feel-good video clip....

Elisha Cuthbert stars in the half-hour midseason entry, which marks the network's third [pro-homosexual] comedy in as many years.

The Sass family only needed 18 points for Family Feud triumph last night.But the final result was so shocking, Steve Harvey's mustache nearly fell off.Tim, the family's patriarch, delivered a spectacular Fast Money round performance, scoring 182 out of the 200 points needed to win. So when Anna stepped up to the speed-round plate, it seemed like a victory was in the bag.WATCH:

It seems every year Americans have more TV channel options than the year prior, but one number has remained consistent — 17. That’s the average number of channels viewers actually tune in to. In 2013, the average TV home received 189 channels, up from 129 in 2008, according to a new report from Nielsen. Back in 2008 Americans tuned in to an average of 17.3 channels, as opposed to this year’s 17.5 figure. Maybe that’s all we channel-surfers can handle. “This data is significant in that it substantiates the notion that more content does not necessarily equate to more channel...

Wednesday, 'Wheel of Fortune' had a very inspirational contestant in Trent Girone. The 21-year-old Peoria, Ariz., resident is a self-described "Wheel of Fortune" fanatic, but more important, he's the first special needs contestant ever to compete on the show.Girone has had nine brain surgeries and has both Asperger's and Tourette's syndromes, but that didn't stop him from taking early control of the wheel by successfully guessing the first puzzle, "a smashing success." Girone ultimately didn't win the game -- he hit the dreaded Bankrupt slot -- but he won viewer hearts from coast-to-coast.  WATCH:

Loved this show! Might even pick up the DVD collection.