CBS News’ “48 Hours” celebrated its 25th full season last week with a shindig at the Central Park Boathouse — with CBS bold-facers Jeff Fager, David Rhodes and the show’s senior executive producer, Susan Zirinsky, among the 250 people who turned out for the event.
(CBS president/CEO Les Moonves appeared via a congratulatory pretaped message.)
The current “48 Hours” staff — including Erin Moriarty, Richard Schlesinger, Maureen Maher, Peter Van Sant, Susan Spencer and Troy Roberts — were on hand, as were a collection of former CBS News execs including Andrew Heyward, Jim Murphy and Joe Peryonnin (who’s married to Zirinsky).
They had good reason to celebrate: “48 Hours” has topped its timeslot for the past six seasons, since moving to its 10 p.m. Saturday home.
Last Saturday’s episode of the show’s short-run series, “Live To Tell — The Stranger You Know,” which aired at 8 p.m., snared nearly 5 million viewers.
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“The Taste” judge Nigella Lawson says she’s whipped herself into much better shape of late — but that doesn’t mean she wants to pass herself off as some sort of svelte svengali.
Lawson, 53, tells People magazine that she forbade execs to airbrush her stomach in ads for “The Taste,” which airs Tuesdays on ABC with Lawson, Anthony Bourdain, Ludovic Lefebvre and chef/restaurateur Brian Malarkey (how great is that last name?).
“It would make me feel like I was being deceitful,” she says. “I’m not a skinny person. There was a curvature, but it’s not like you needed a wheelbarrow to prop it up.”
Lawson is featured in the Feb. 18 issue of People, which hits newsstands today in New York and LA.
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Last, but not least:
* Ch. 4’s Darlene Rodriguez emcees this morning’s “Champions of Diversity Awards Breakfast” at the Four Seasons . . . Monday night’s episode of “Switched at Birth” delivered its best numbers in over a year in adults 18-34 — and hit season-highs in total viewers (1.8 million) and adults 18-49 on ABC Family . . . I’m guessing I’m not the only one who thinks it’s a bad idea to use the hash tag “#ROCKBOTTOM” for Brian Williams’ show-ending segment on the struggling “Rock Center”? Maybe they’re going for a self-deprecating vibe.