(Reuters) – CBS Corp Chief Executive Leslie Moonves on Tuesday rejected the latest proposal by Time Warner Cable Inc to end its blackout of the network and dismissed the cable company’s offer as a “public relations gesture.” Even though both sides urged each o... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – A British actor best known for playing a foul-mouthed political spin doctor was named on Sunday as the new lead in the BBC’s “Doctor Who”, the long-running science fiction series that has terrified generations of children. Ending months of s... More »
(Reuters) – ABC television executives are talking with George Lucas’ Lucasfilm studio about making TV shows based on characters developed by the studio that created the “Star Wars” franchise, according to the president of Disney’s ABC Entertainment Group. “We’... More »
BEVERLY HILLS, California (Reuters) – After lackluster viewership ratings, Fox’s reality singing contest “The X Factor” will enter season three with a revamped panel dominated by women that creator Simon Cowell says will reflect female artists’ dominance in th... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – An American version of the popular British television crime drama “Broadchurch” will be landing on U.S. shores next year, TV network Fox said on Thursday. The series, which has the working title of “Broadchurch,” will begin filming in J... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Television musical series “Glee” will address the death of star Cory Monteith in the upcoming season, writing his character out of the show and touching on Monteith’s real-life drug use, U.S. TV network Fox said on Thursday. Monteith, w... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Country singer Keith Urban will be returning to “American Idol” as a judge when the Fox singing contest returns for its 13th season next year, Fox Broadcasting Company said on Thursday. “I will confirm one thing, Keith is going to retur... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – NBC plans to air a four-hour miniseries starring Diane Lane as former U.S. Secretary of State and first lady Hillary Clinton, part of the broadcast TV network’s strategy to improve its ratings by luring viewers to one-time event program... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actor Michael J. Fox said he aimed to bring laughs and a dose of reality about day-to-day living with Parkinson’s disease to a new NBC comedy loosely based on his life, his first lead role in a television show in 13 years. In the upcomi... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Longtime “Saturday Night Live” cast member Jason Sudeikis said on Wednesday he has left the NBC late-night sketch comedy show, joining fellow comedians Bill Hader and Fred Armisen out the door after the show finished its 38th season in ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Even the Jersey shore might have had enough of Snooki. Some residents of tiny Pelican Island say they do not want the star of MTV’s “Jersey Shore” reality show there to film the latest season of her spinoff show, “Snooki and JWoww.” The un... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Dennis Farina, the former Chicago cop turned film and television actor best known for his role as wise-cracking detective Joe Fontana on the hit NBC police drama “Law & Order,” died in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Monday, his publicist said.... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Screen Actors Guild, which represents film, television and other performers in the United States, on Monday said Rita Moreno will receive its lifetime achievement award at its annual awards ceremony in January. Moreno, 81, has been ... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Dennis Farina, the former Chicago cop turned film and TV actor best known for his role as wise-cracking detective Joe Fontana on the hit NBC police drama “Law & Order,” died in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Monday, his publicist said. He was ... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Although “American Horror Story: Asylum” bested HBO’s fantasy epic “Game of Thrones” in picking up the most Primetime Emmy nominations on Thursday, the fright-filled FX miniseries could face another tough year at the fickle Emmys. “It’s... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “House of Cards,” a sleek 13-episode political drama released all at once gave Internet-streaming service Netflix its first Emmy nominations on Thursday in a closely watched contest for the future of television entertainment beyond broa... More »
(Reuters) – Mike Darnell, who left the Fox TV network earlier this year after shepherding hit shows like “American Idol” and “So You Think you Can Dance,” joined Warner Brothers to oversee the studio’s reality programming, the company said on Thursday. Darnell... More »
ROME (Reuters) – It may have set Sophia Loren on the road to Hollywood stardom, but the Italian state broadcaster thinks the Miss Italia beauty contest is showing its age, and is dropping its coverage after 25 years. Predictably in a country where skimpily cla... More »
(Reuters) – Canadian authorities said on Monday they will perform an autopsy including toxicology tests to determine the cause of death of actor Cory Monteith, the 31-year-old heartthrob of Fox’s musical-comedy television series “Glee” who was found dead on Sa... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Actress and comedian Jenny McCarthy will be joining ABC’s popular daytime talk show “The View” in September for the start of its 17th season, the network said on Monday. Barbara Walters, a founder of the show, said McCarthy will be a perma... More »
(Reuters) – Canadian actor Cory Monteith, 31-year-old heartthrob of Fox’s musical comedy television series “Glee”, was found dead on Saturday in his Vancouver hotel room, police said. Police and paramedics found no signs of foul play and the cause of death was... More »
SUN VALLEY, Idaho (Reuters) – Liberty Media Corp chairman and cable pioneer John Malone, whose offer to buy Time Warner Cable Inc was rejected by its management, sees Time Warner Cable as a buyer of other cable operators in an industry that needs to be consoli... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Television commentator Elisabeth Hasselbeck is leaving ABC’s daytime talk show “The View” after a decade to join the Fox News Channel as a co-host on morning talk show “Fox & Friends,” Fox News said on Tuesday. Hasselbeck, 36, a conserv... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Teenage Olympian Gabrielle Douglas, rapper Kendrick Lamar, actor Jamie Foxx as well as singers Rihanna and Nicki Minaj were among the top winners at the annual BET Awards on Sunday. The BET Awards celebrate black musicians, actors and athl... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – After two years as a runner-up, Oprah Winfrey was named the most powerful celebrity on Wednesday by Forbes, heading the six women and four men who make up the top 10. It was the fifth time the former talk show host who runs her own TV netw... More »
(Warning: contains graphic language.) By Alex Dobuzinskis LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Food Network said on Friday it would drop celebrity chef Paula Deen after the Southern food doyenne was sued for racial discrimination and admitted in a legal deposition to u... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The remains of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of sci-fi fantasy television series “Star Trek,” will head for the final frontier next year. Scotty will be going along with him. Rodenberry’s cremated remains, along with those of his wife, ... More »
(Reuters) – A spike in sales of “The Sopranos” DVDs, downloads and merchandise based on the mafia series following star James Gandolfini’s death may only be short-lived and likely won’t provide much of a windfall for HBO and its parent Time Warner Inc. Sales o... More »
ATLANTA (Reuters) – One of U.S. celebrity chef Paula Deen’s employers said on Thursday it was monitoring the controversy over her admission that she has used a racial slur in the past, while Deen’s own company said the cooking star does not condone racism. In ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Art collector Charles Saatchi has been cautioned by police for assaulting his wife, the celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, after being photographed grabbing her by the throat in an incident that has fueled a debate in Britain about domestic viol... More »
(Reuters) – Fox Sports has signed a 12-year contract to carry the new Big East basketball conference, the first major sports rights agreement it has entered since announcing its new national cable channel to compete with ESPN. Terms of the deal were not disclo... More »
(Reuters) – Ora.TV, the fledgling online digital TV network backed by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, has acquired television production company Stick Figure Productions in order to expand its content. Terms of the deal, announced on Wednesday, were not discl... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Reality television star Kim Kardashian gave birth to a girl fathered by rapper Kanye West, celebrity magazines People and Us Weekly reported Saturday. Each magazine posted a story on its website citing an unnamed source in confirming th... More »
(Reuters) – Arthur Minson, a former senior officer at online media company AOL, has been named the new finance chief of No. 2 U.S. cable provider Time Warner Cable Inc. Minson, who had worked as a deputy chief financial officer at Time Warner Cable from 2007-0... More »
(Reuters) – Sirius XM has struck a deal to carry a new channel produced by Glenn Beck’s media company ‘theBlaze’, featuring conservative talk shows and news programming that begins airing on Monday. The new channel is the latest effort by Beck, a former Fox Ne... More »
(Reuters) – Longtime NBC Universal executive Bonnie Hammer will soon be running all of the media company’s cable networks besides sports and news, as part of a reshuffling, NBC’s CEO Steve Burke said on Monday. In a memo to staff, Burke said that starting imme... More »
PASADENA, California (Reuters) – NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt said he expects the network’s ratings to slip in the coming months after an unexpectedly strong fall season, though he hopes some coming new shows will break out to help stem the dec... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Comcast Corp’s NBCUniversal entertainment unit is laying off about 500 employees at cable channels, Jay Leno’s late-night TV show and the Universal Pictures movie studio, a person with knowledge of the matter said on Monday. The cuts ad... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s BBC could be doomed unless it makes radical changes, the head of its governing trust said, after its director general quit to take the blame for the airing of false child sex abuse allegations against a former politician. BBC Trust... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s BBC could be doomed unless it makes radical changes, the head of its governing trust said on Sunday, after its director general quit to take the blame for the airing of false child sex abuse allegations against a former politician.... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – BBC Director General George Entwistle resigned on Saturday, just two months into the job, after the state-funded broadcaster put out a program denounced by the corporation’s chairman as shoddy journalism. The BBC, reeling from revelations th... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – BBC Director General George Entwistle resigned on Saturday, just two months into the job, after failing to get to grips with a child sex abuse scandal that has thrown the 90-year-old state-funded broadcaster into turmoil. Entwistle has faced... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s public broadcaster, reeling from revelations that one of its former stars was a pedophile, was struggling to contain damage on Saturday after a flagship news program aired a mistaken allegation that an ex-politician sexually abused... More »
(Reuters) – The erupting scandal at Britain’s public broadcaster, the BBC, over allegations of sexual abuse involving late TV host Jimmy Savile is leading to awkward questions for the New York Times Co’s incoming chief executive, Mark Thompson. The BBC is faci... More »
(Reuters) – CNN host and Time magazine contributing editor-at-large Fareed Zakaria was suspended by his employers on Friday after he acknowledged copying material for a recent column he wrote about gun control from another writer. Time said it was suspending Z... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Stars of the hit ABC comedy “Modern Family” agreed to new contracts on Friday, ending a dispute that erupted in public just as the show prepared to start work on a fourth season. Show creator Steve Levitan said the six adult cast member... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The top programming executive for ABC primetime television said he expects the network’s hit comedy “Modern Family” to debut on schedule in September, despite a current dispute over salaries with several of the show’s top stars. “Modern... More »
SUN VALLEY, Idaho (Reuters) – Barry Diller, the consummate Hollywood dealmaker who revamped the TV business in the 1980s, is back in the media spotlight after a federal judge threw out an injunction against Aereo, the online TV service he backs. Broadcasters i... More »
GNIEWINO, Poland (Reuters) – Ten Real Madrid players will pull on the shirts of Spain, Portugal and Germany in this week’s Euro 2012 semi-finals, the latest reminder of the clout wielded by the world’s richest soccer club by income. Cristiano Ronaldo, the worl... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest is considering a bid to buy Dick Clark Productions, the company founded by the late TV icon and Seacrest’s mentor, people with knowledge of the matter said. Ryan Seacrest Media is among the potential b... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – CNN said on Wednesday it was canceling John King’s daily TV show “John King, USA,” and shifting the veteran journalist to head up its 2012 presidential campaign coverage. King’s show will end on June 29, and Wolf Blitzer’s “The Situatio... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The struggling NBC network on Sunday announced 16 new TV shows – seven of them comedies – for the 2012-2013 season, and in a show of confidence said it will broadcast singing contest “The Voice” in the fall as well as the spring. NBC, w... More »
(Reuters) – Discovery Communications reported a lower-than-expected quarterly profit on Tuesday, hurt by losses at the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), sending its shares down 6.5 percent. OWN, the joint venture with the “queen of talk” that is struggling with lac... More »
(Reuters) – Rupert Murdoch faces limited risk of losing News Corp’s broadcast permits in America, even amid screaming headlines in Britain that the media mogul is unfit to run a major company. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has the power to deny a ... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The green slime flowed so much that even first lady Michelle Obama could not escape it at the Kids’ Choice Awards on Saturday where singers Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift came away big winners. The program is an annual stop for Hollywoo... More »
(Reuters) – Current TV said on Friday it fired star news anchor Keith Olbermann after one year with the progressive public affairs network, accusing him of breaching his contract and trying to sabotage the TV channel. But Olbermann, in a series of Twitter post... More »
