Daily Marauder

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ABC, Fox and Sony Pictures Television are said to be circling Jay Leno, the late-night host who is set to be succeeded by Conan O’Brien at NBC’s “The Tonight Show” in 2009. NBC, meanwhile, is expressing its intention to retain Leno with a still-undisclosed plan for a new show. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/arts/television/27leno.html?_r=1&oref=slogin  2/27)

Jeff Zucker echoed NBC’s intention to keep Jay Leno in house today at Harvard Business School’s Entertainment and Media Conference.

ABC’s new 30m comedy series Miss Guided starring Judy Greer and executive produced by Ashton Kutcher and Todd Holland will premiere March 18 at 1030p following a 90-minute installment of Dancing with the Stars. The sitcom about a high school teacher who returns to teach at her alma mater will move to its regular time slot March 20 with two episodes at 8p and 830p. The series is produced by 20th Century Fox Television and ABC Studios.

Click below for a preview of the show.

ABC ordered eight episodes of a new and as yet untitled reality series, a joined effort from Tyra Banks and Ashton Kutcher for Warner Horizon, Bankable Prods and Katalyst. 

CBS, reporting a 15% decline in fourth-quarter net income, is signaling a new acquisition push as it seeks new sources of growth to offset a slowdown in its mature broadcast businesses. Little growth in earnings is fanning concerns about the long-term prospects of traditional operations. (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120402857528893529.html  2/27)

CBS Corp. chief Les Moonves claimed in a conference call with analysts the writers’ strike actually helped the bottom line by ushering in permanent efficiencies, including slimmed down upfront presentations and the ordering of fewer, cheaper pilots. He also touted new media initiatives, predicting March Madness streaming will earn $21 million in online ad revenue this year, up from $4 million last year. 

CBS ordered The Mentalist, a scripted drama about a mentalist who uses his capabilities to help solve crimes.  The project comes from Warner Bros. TV and writer Bruno Heller.

Hollywood writers are overwhelmingly ratifying a three-year contract with film and television studios that gives them a bigger share of revenue generated by use of their work on the Internet. Writers Guild of America members cast ballots Monday, with 4,060 taking part. (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=aPwJh.ziqrz4  2/26) 

New York’s Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department yesterday reversed a judgment made in May 2007 which allowed Comcast to position the NFL Network on a sports tier. Last year, Comcast won the right in court to move the NFL Network to a more expensive sports tier if it did not acquire rights to the out-of-market NFL Sunday Ticket pay-per-view package or an eight-game primetime package for Versus. Both primetime packages were given to the NFL Network by the NFL in January 2006. A statement released by an NFL spokesperson said “We are pleased that the lower court decision was reversed. We believe that today’s decision ultimately will lead to the restoration of NFL Network service to the millions of fans who received it before the Network was moved to an expensive sports tier.” Comcast’s current contract with the NFL Network expires April 2009.

Beginning this fall, MyNetworkTV will be the new broadcast television home of WWE SmackDown from WWE. The two-hour WWE SmackDown will air on MNT weekly with a cast of WWE Superstars including Edge, Rey Mysterio and Undertaker. 

The Style Network picked up the cable rights to the hidden camera comedy series The Real Wedding Crashers which originally aired on NBC last year. The series begins on Style March 4 at 9p.

Bravo pumps up for a third season of the docu-series Work Out starting April 15 at 11p. The new season follows fitness guru Jackie Warner as she hires four new trainers for her Beverly Hills gym and has a new relationship at home. Later, Work Out moves to its regular time period of 10p Tuesdays on April 22.

Variety reports NBC’s drama series Las Vegas from Universal Media Studios will not go back into post-strike production. 

Comcast admits hiring people to fill seats before the start of a federal hearing on how the company manages its broadband network. Many people were turned away before Monday’s U.S. Federal Communications Commission hearing, leading critics to accuse Comcast of stifling debate. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080227/ap_on_hi_te/internet_regulation  2/27)

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin may be coming around to Comcast’s way of thinking on the company’s management of Web traffic. At a public forum in Massachusetts on the topic of net neutrality, Martin said: “The question is: What are reasonable network practices? Networks may have legitimate network-management practices. Obviously network operators can take reasonable steps to manage traffic, but they cannot arbitrarily block access.” (CED Magazine 2/26)  

Charter gained 155,300 phone customers during the fourth quarter, a record high for the company, which also added 50,500 customers for its high-speed Internet service and 59,700 digital-video subscribers during the period. Fourth-quarter revenue increased 10%, from $1.41 billion in the comparable period a year earlier to $1.55 billion, but Charter recorded a net loss of $468 million, or $1.27 a share. (OneTRAK 2/27, Forbes/AFX News Limited/Thomson Financial 2/27)

Mediacom cut its basic-cable-subscriber losses by half in the fourth quarter of 2007 — from 14,000 in the same quarter in 2006 to 7,000. While the second-tier cable provider’s results were lower than industry benchmarks, revenue rose about 6%, to $332.5 million, and cash flow increased 7.7%, to $119.5 million. (Multichannel News 2/26)  

DISH CEO Charlie Ergen said his company would offer 100 local and national channels in high definition in 100 markets by the end of 2008. The satellite provider is playing HD catch-up, primarily because of the weakening economy and delays in satellite launches, Ergen said. CNNMoney.com/Dow Jones Newswires (2/26) , (Multichannel News 2/26)

TV viewers gave ad-supported cable networks a big, monthlong Valentine’s hug, according to Nielsen Media Research data from Jan. 28 to Feb. 24, as seven of the top 10 networks amassed double-digit growth in prime time compared with the year-ago period. USA led the month with an average of 2.98 million viewers, a 10% increase, followed by TNT with 2.26 million, up 7%, and Fox News Channel with 1.87 million, 16% higher. (Mediaweek 2/26)