Having spent an hour tonight trying figure out why Front Row refused to work with my “external monitor” (A Sony Bravia TV), I thought I would share the solution I found.

Normally, to allow Front Row to work with an external monitor, all I do is:

System Preferences » Displays » Arrangement

And then drag the grey menu bar to desired screen.

99% of the time this allows me to use the external monitor as the main Front Row screen. Recently, even after performing the steps above, Front Row will run only on my Macbook Pro.

Having tried several suggestions found on Apple Discussions, I think I have found a solution to the problem.

If your Front Row refuses to move to the external monitor, whilst Front Row is running simply press CMD + ALT + ESC - this forces Front Row to quit. The next time you run Front Row it should now appear on your external monitor (as long as you have followed the normal steps above).

I’ve tried this on the last 3 occassions I have had this problem and each time has fixed it… but as always YMMV.