Daily Marauder

BROADCAST/CABLE by Marauder

BROADCAST/CABLE

Tuesday night’s season finale of Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood on Oxygen at 10p delivered 932,000 A18-49, 751,000 W18-49, and 1.3 million total viewers. (Cynopsis 8/14)

HBO sinks its teeth into a new series True Blood which opens September 7 at 9p. The 12-episode freshman series is about Bill Compton, a 173-year old vampire played by Stephen Moyer who moves to a remote Louisiana town and meets Sookie Stackhouse, an unusual woman who can read minds, played by Anna Paquin. The series is created and executive produced by Alan Ball (Six Feet Under) and is based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris. (Cynopsis 8/14)

Oprah Winfrey plans to be in the audience but will have no stage role during Barack Obama‘s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Winfrey’s daytime talk show is believed to have paid a price in popularity for taking a political stance in the past year. (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/08/oprah-obama.html 8/14)

NBC Universal’s cable networks, particularly MSNBC and CNBC, are seeing big ratings increases, thanks to their parent company’s wide-ranging coverage of the Summer Olympics from Beijing. Alan Wurtzel, NBCU’s president of research, said that America’s focus was on China right now and that the company’s wall-to-wall coverage of the Games was “a win-win in every way” for its cable networks. The New York Times (8/13)

Leah Remini (King of Queens) and CBS Television Distribution are reportedly developing a daytime syndicated series for the actress, tho no full details are yet available, reports THR. (Cynopsis 8/14)

Aspiring fashion designers will get their big chances in a new TLC reality show called “Who Are You Wearing?” that’s slated to debut on Aug. 22. Here’s the setup: Four celebrity-designer wannabes will create outfits for actual celebrities who will be attending a red-carpet event. TVWeek.com (8/13)

VH1 presents three new series beginning Thursday, August 21: The Fabulous Life, Glam God with Vivica A. Fox, & The Cho Show. (Cynopsis 8/14)

Cable TV networks have spent a cumulative $19 billion in original programming since 2003, according to a recent study from the Cable Advertising Bureau. All that money has added up to two things: Cable shows such as “Mad Men” and “Project Runway” are stealing all the buzz from the broadcast networks, and, not coincidentally, cable’s ad-revenue growth will increase more than 10% for the rest of the year, SNL Kagen said in a separate study. Advertising Age (8/13)

Cablevision executives have completed what some are calling a “listening tour” of investors’ suggestions and concerns. One investor present at the meetings said that the company’s leaders were open to a number of alternatives that potentially could boost the cable provider’s stock price and that they also would hold off on any major acquisitions. Cablevision, however, did not provide comment for the report. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) (8/14)

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