Daily Marauder

BROADCAST/CABLE

The fifth-season premiere of Sci Fi’s “Stargate Atlantis” on Friday night attracted 1.8 million total viewers, a 6% increase over the premiere of its fourth season. The show drew 1.05 million viewers in the 25-to-54-year-old demographic, the fourth-best performance in the demo that night. Multichannel News (7/14)

MTV’s finale of The Real World: Hollywood last Wednesday earned a 2.4 rating among P12-34 which represents a +63% increase over last season’s finale of The Real World: Sydney. Overall, the 20th season of The Real World franchise averaged a 2.3 rating with P12-34 a +19% boost over the prior season. (Cynopsis 7/15)

Showtime has entered into a deal with The Weinstein Co. to exclusively distribute its films for the next seven years. The deal involves about 95 theatricals and is estimated to be worth about $500 million. International Herald Tribune/Associated Press (7/15) , The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) (7/15)

HBO has undertaken its most extensive — and unusual — promotional effort ever in support of its upcoming vampire series, “True Blood.” As part of its campaign, the network has engaged horror buffs, who willingly translated mysterious snail-mail letters written in the dead languages of Babylonian and Ugaritic. The New York Times (7/15)

FOX plans to change the way it orders pilots and organizes its development cycle. Because of the recent writers’ strike, FOX has ordered eight pilot projects this summer for potential screenings this December. Rather than keeping a traditional pilot schedule where projects are usually ordered in the spring, Fox Entertainment President, Kevin Reilly said yesterday he hopes the network will split pilots into two time periods. (Cynopsis 7/15)

IFC will debut Automat, its first primetime block of original programming on Tuesday nights from 8 pm in September showcasing some of the original programming IFC.com has been showcasing for the web. Included in the 4-hour block will be outtakes and full-length episodes from Lunchbox, Young American Bodies, Get Hit, Getting Away With Murder and Uploaded. (Cynopsis 7/15)

The FCC called a press conference on Friday to announce it wouldn’t be fining Comcast for throttling P2P traffic, reported B&C, even though it was found guilty of violating the FCC’s open access principles. Kevin Martin did chastise the cable operator for failing to adequately inform users of its practices and warned that subsequent violations by cable operators may result in fines. (Cynopsis 7/15)

Cablevision will begin offering shows from MTV Networks’ Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, Noggin, The N and Logo and BET as part of its free video-on-demand service. The deal involves shows such as “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” “Blue’s Clues,” “Exes & Ohs” and “Baldwin Hills.” Broadcasting & Cable (7/14)