Daily Marauder

BROADCAST/CABLE

The Ellen Degeneres Show will be the next daytime talker to be broadcast in HD next season after moving to a new state-of-the-art all digital facility on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank. (Cynopsis 5/8)

CBS College Sports Network has also made the jump to HD, available nationally on DirecTV. (Cynopsis 5/8)

AMC’s “Breaking Bad,” the series about a chemistry teacher who uses his expertise with a Bunsen burner to produce crystal meth, has been renewed for a second season. The Bryan Cranston-starring show averaged 1.4 million total viewers during its freshman season. (The Hollywood Reporter 5/7)

HBO’s popular “Hard Knocks” series, which focuses on one NFL team’s training-camp experiences, will spotlight the Dallas Cowboys this August. And with stars like the Jessica Simpson-dating Tony Romo and the camera-loving Terrell Owens, the pay-cable net is expecting ratings pay dirt. (International Herald Tribune/Associated Press 5/7)

Bravo will continue to “flip out” as the docu-series Flipping Out is back for a second season starting June 17 at 10p. Jeff Lewis, the ranting obsessive-compulsive house flipper, and his staff are back as they renovate and sell multimillion-dollar houses in the Los Angeles area. (Cynopsis 5/8)

NBC Universal is making strides to fulfill its long-term plans for its East Coast operations. First, WNBC will makeover its 30 Rockefeller Center location into a multimillion dollar content facility and launch a 24-hour local news channel on the station’s digital tier this fall. The goal of this move is to offer more news and information to the New York market and house NBC News, NBC Sports, NBC Entertainment including SNL and Late Night with Conan O’Brien and WNBC, literally all under one roof. Additionally, a new Business Operations Center will open next year and employees from three different locations will come together … you guessed it, under the same 30 Rock roof. (Cynopsis 5/8, http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080507/FREE/453424355/1059 5/7)

Robust ad sales at the Fox Broadcast Network and Fox News Channel — along with a one-time boost from a stock swap with Liberty Media — fueled solid fiscal third-quarter advances for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. The company, which also owns the National Geographic Channel, Speed and the new Fox Business Network, reported a profit of $2.7 billion during the period, up from $871 million a year earlier. Cable-related revenue was up 27%. (Stuff (New Zealand)/Reuters 5/8, OneTRAK 5/7)

Hallmark Channel’s subscriber count is up 11%, to 84 million, and ad revenue has increased 23%, to $56.4 million, the company announced in its first-quarter earnings call. Overall, Crown Media Holdings reported revenue gains of 32%, to $70.6 million, for the first three months of the year. (The Kansas City Star (Mo.) 5/7, Medill Reports (Chicago) 5/7)

News Corp. plans to wrap up an deal to buy Newsday from Sam Zell’s Tribune in the next seven days, says chief Rupert Murdoch. “We are at a pretty advanced stage. I trust Mr. Zell absolutely.” He adds, “I don’t think Cablevision will prevail” in its rival bid. “Wait a couple of days.” (Iwantmedia 5/8, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aGJ0RmdIZHZM 5/7)

Six cable programmers are asking a federal appeals court to reverse the FCC’s requirement that cable systems carry local broadcast stations in digital and analog after the February 2009 transition to digital TV. The six — C-SPAN, Discovery Communications, The Weather Channel, TV One, A&E Television Networks and Scripps Networks — argue that they could be dropped from overcrowded systems if the FCC’s ruling stands. (Multichannel News 5/7, Broadcasting & Cable 5/7)

Hank Close, the president of ad sales for MTV Networks, will tell ad agency executives today that networks such as MTV, VH1 and Spike have had incredible success with commercials the company has created for advertisers that look like regular programming and that there will be more of them in the future. “The results are amazing,” Close said. “In many of these messages we’re seeing 100% retention.” (The New York Times 5/8)

A scene from a series of spots called “Men of Action” for Spike TV, which ties in products from Kay Jewelers and KFC.