Entertainment Industry News

NEW YORK - The last baseball all-star game at Yankee Stadium and the most-watched midsummer classic since 2002 — at least through the first nine innings — helped Fox to a TV ratings victory.

Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen Media Research for July 14-20. Listings include the week's ranking, with viewership for the week and season-to-date rankings in parentheses. An "X" in parentheses denotes a one-time-only presentation.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Imax has been "this close" to breaking big on the film exhibition scene, well, seemingly forever.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's largest pay-TV firm BSkyB is to launch an online subscription music service and has signed the world's largest music group Universal as its first partner, in a deal that could challenge Apple.

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Sony Pictures Classics is in advanced negotiations to acquire "Synecdoche, New York," writer Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut and one of the more buzzed-about titles from this year's Cannes Film Festival.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NBC Universal has sold more than $900 million in advertising time for the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, booking nearly 90 percent of its inventory three weeks ahead of the opening ceremony, the company said on Monday.

-The Premise: Spun-off from Beverly Hills, 90210, this contemporary version looks at life in the famous zip code though the teenage eyes of Annie Mills (Shenae Grimes) and her brother Dixon (Tristan Wilds), whose family has moved to Beverly Hills to keep an eye on their troubled grandmother (Jessica Walter).

LOS ANGELES - Bruce Wayne just keeps getting richer.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government's campaign against television indecency was dealt a blow on Monday when a court overturned a $550,000 fine against CBS Corp television stations for airing a glimpse of pop singer Janet Jackson's breast during the 2004 Super Bowl broadcast.

Smack in the middle of the Summer TCA Press Tour are always the Primetime Emmy Award nominations. On that note, HBO leads the pack once again with a hefty 85 nominations. Next is ABC at 76, followed by CBS (51), NBC (50), PBS (33), Fox (28), Showtime (21), Sci Fi Channel (15), Bravo and FX Networks (11 each) and TNT (10). HBO miniseries John Adams is the most nominated individual program, with 23. ...

ABC opened its second day of TCA with a Disney Channel session on those amazingly perky Cheetah Girls (Adrienne Bailon, Sabrina Bryan and Kiely Williams) in their latest original movie, The Cheetah Girls One World. Although you already know the plot -- they sing, they dance and they smile and giggle a lot, this time in India -- what set this panel apart from anything we have seen was the diversity of the panel. According to Disney Channel Entertainment President Gary March, who addressed the topic of diversity:

-Yesterday's Winners: Wipeout (ABC), NCIS R (CBS), America's Got Talent (NBC), Hell's Kitchen (Fox)

LOS ANGELES - Batman's joust with the Joker has set another box office record. Stoked by fan fever over the manic performance of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, "The Dark Knight" set a one-day box office record with $66.4 million on opening day, Warner Bros. head of distribution Dan Fellman said Saturday.

With second quarter 2008 a wrap, here are some of the individual highlights of note by cable network:

WASHINGTON (AP) — During his tenure at the Federal Communications Commission, Jonathan Adelstein has been a fierce critic of government policies that allow big media companies to get bigger. So it came as a surprise when the Democratic commissioner put forth a proposal that would allow the nation's only two satellite radio companies to merge.

It was a low-rated week of three-way leadership, with CBS first in households and total viewers, Fox No. 1 among adults 18-49 and adults 18-34, and NBC inching past Fox by one-tenth of a rating point in adults 25-54. ABC finished fourth in households and total viewers, third in adults 18-49 and adults 25-54, and second among adults 18-34 for the week of June 23, but the network grew year-to-year by margins of 10 to 27 percent thanks to positive starts for Wipeout and I Survived a Japanese Game Show. ...

LOS ANGELES - The Screen Actors Guild on Thursday gave its most detailed explanation yet for its rejection of a final contract offer by Hollywood studios, citing shortfalls in pay and union jurisdiction on made-for-Internet productions.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - It turns out Batman is more of a superhero than first thought.

-New is Not Necessarily Better: American Gladiators (NBC), Nashville Star (NBC), The Mole (ABC)

Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by Nielsen Media Research for the week of July 7-13. Day and start time (EDT) are in parentheses:

Program Partners, home of highly anticipated fall 2009 talk show Marie, hosted by Marie Osmond, has renewed off-net dramas Da Vinci’s Inquest, Cold Squad and ReGenesis for next season. Da Vinci’s Inquest will be heading into year four, Cold Squad year three and ReGenesis year two. Cold Squad and ReGenesis fall under the Crime Watch umbrella, and all three hours have been cleared in over 90 percent of the country for 2008-09.

LOS ANGELES - A Nebraska man has sued custom car and bike-maker Jesse James, claiming the former television host failed to deliver a custom automobile despite paying more $420,000.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Three weeks after the expiration of their contract, the Screen Actors Guild and the studios appear to be living on different planets.

-Friday's Losers (excluding repeats): Dance Machine (ABC), Movie: XXX – State of the Union, Duel (ABC), 20/20 (ABC)

LOS ANGELES - One word sums up the announcements made by the Big Three gaming companies at the E3 this week: more.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The nation's TV critics have named AMC's Emmy-nominated series "Mad Men" outstanding new program and the year's best drama.

-Yesterday's Winners: Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (Fox), So You Think You Can Dance (Fox), Hopkins (ABC)

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Lou Pearlman and federal authorities have finally agreed on how much the former boy band promoter swindled from banks and investors in a decades-long scam: a staggering $300 million.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The first round of bids for Reed Elsevier's Reed Business Information unit is expected to range from $2 billion to $2.5 billion and are due August 11, sources familiar with the matter said on Monday.