Two-tone a trendy way to dress up tresses

Still dyeing for ombre

Sammi Wasson loves her darkbrown hair, but the cold, dark winter left her eager for a change. Instead of lightening all her locks, though, Wasson chose a trendy two-tone look called ombre.

Ombre — which blends two or more shades, such as brunet on the top and blond on the bottom — has proved popular since the look started showing up on celebrities in recent years, according to hairstylists in central Ohio.

The style allows women to add a pop of color without committing to a drastic change.

“I’ve been platinum blond before, and it was bad,” Wasson, 30, of Grandview Heights, said shortly before a stylist lightened the ends of her hair at Phia Salon in the Short North.

“This way, I can have some highlights

See

Page

than for a full season. We all have busy lives. I don’t have the endurance for a 20-episode season.”

The revival of the short series has been evident in New York this week at the “upfronts,” at which broadcast and cable networks present their shows to advertisers for advance commitments.

For its 2014-15 lineup, Fox is planning two 10episode series: Gracepoint, based on the British TV murder mystery Broadchurch; and Wayward Pines, from M. Night Shyamalan, who directed The Sixth Sense.

NBC, part of Comcast Corp., touted two new short series at its presentation — including A.D., a biblical epic from realityTV producer Mark Burnett.

NBC leads the primetime ratings in the 18to-49 age demographic this season for the first time in a decade, with help from professional football, the Winter Olympics, The Voice and The Blacklist.

Conventional television continues to face growing competition from alternative programmers such

The revival of the short series has been evident in New York this week at the ‘upfronts.’

as Netflix, Amazon.com and YouTube.

Prime-time audiences for the big four broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox — are down 1.7 percent this season in the 18-to-49 age group that advertisers target, according to Nielsen data.

The big four have lost 21 percent of those viewers since 2010.

Cable audiences are also shrinking. Primetime viewers at the 35 most-watched cable networks in that age group have declined 3.2 percent this TV season, Nielsen data show.

The CBS deal for Extant, which features Berry as an astronaut trying to re-connect with her family, and the one for the second season of Under the Dome were financed in part by Amazon.com, which is releasing the shows online for customers of its Prime service.

Hit shows during the summer can be used to promote new ones in the fall, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves told investors recently.

“Advertisers now view us as a 12-month-a-year programming machine,” he said.

Cable networks, which pioneered year-round programming, are also producing more shortrun programs.

A&E Networks, owned by Walt Disney Co. and Hearst Corp., plans to remake Roots, the 1977 miniseries that set the standard for short dramatic programs and ranks as one of the mostwatched in history. (A writer and stars have yet to be selected.)

The company last year showed the miniseries Bonnie & Clyde on three of its networks — A&E, History and Lifetime — attracting almost 10 million viewers on the first night.

A&E Networks pool their marketing dollars to promote their special projects, said CEO Nancy Dubuc.

“The entire company is going to focus on Roots,” Dubuc said last month at the Milken Institute Global Conference.

“That is event television.”