Daily Marauder

BROADCAST/CABLE

Fans of AMC’s Mad Men series will want to Tivo this Friday’s Jeopardy! as the trivia game show features a category focused on the series complete with Mad Men cast members offering clues. Check your local listings for stations and times for Jeopardy! (Cynopsis 10/15)

VH1′s premiere of Rock Of Love Charm School With Sharon Osbourne last Sunday at 9p delivered a 1.4 A18-49 rating and attracted 2.4 million total viewers. Following at 10p, Pick-Up Artist 2 posted a 0.8 A18-49 rating and 1.2 million total viewers. (Cynopsis 10/15)

Real-life married duo Jason Jones and Samantha Bee, currently correspondents on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show With Jon Stewart agreed to co-create and co-write a script centered on themselves for CBS, per Variety. The yet unnamed comedy would be about a celebrity chef (Jones) and the two women who control his life (one played by Bee). In addition, Jones and Bee made separate talent holding deals with CBS and CBS Paramount Network TV. (Cynopsis 10/15)

Matthew Perry will star and produce a dark comedy pilot for Showtime called The End of Steve, cites Variety. Produced by Sony Pictures TV, the pilot has Perry in the lead as an ego-centric, angry afternoon talk show host on a local station in Rochester, NY. The show will be co-produced by Peter Tolan. (Cynopsis 10/15)

Longtime HBO Films president Colin Callender is leaving the company to launch his own entertainment firm. “This was solely my decision to leave,” he says. HBO, like other parts of Time Warner, is retrenching; Callender’s duties will be assumed by two of his subordinates. (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hbo15-2008oct15,0,5559971.story 10/15)

For the second time during the long-running presidential race, Fox News Channel has won the prime-time ratings crown among ad-supported cable networks. Fox averaged 3.44 million viewers during the week that ended Oct. 12, which included the town hall debate between Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain. Mediaweek (10/14)

Hubbard Media’s ReelzChannel is offering money back guaranteed movie picks during the network’s daily entertainment show TV Dailies, hosted by Sam Rubin. If you order one of his picks from your cable or satellite company as a PPV selection and don’t like it, Reelz will reimburse you for the amount you paid. (Cynopsis 10/15)

Comedy Central and The Weinstein Co. have made final a deal that will bring five comedy movies to the cable network. The deal involves first-window rights to “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” “Extreme Movie” and “The Hammer” as well as second-window rights to “Who’s Your Caddy?” and “Soul Men,” which stars Samuel L. Jackson and the late Bernie Mac. The Hollywood Reporter (10/14)

Hit shows and programs with a younger audience are most likely to gain ratings points from time-shifting viewers, according to data released by Nielsen Media Research. The season premieres of ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and NBC’s “Heroes” scored especially well, adding millions of time-shifting viewers. Live sports programs are among the least recorded. The New York Times (10/13)

Verizon Communications is offering whole-home HD DVR customers in Maryland and Virginia access to a new interactive media guide that enables subscribers to stream HD content from a main HD DVR to other HD sets in their house. Other services being offered include “Wait for Me,” new widgets, Fantasy Football and “My Videos,” among others. OneTRAK (10/13)

President Bush signed the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act on Monday that steepens the penalties for copyright infringements and establishes a “Copyright Czar” within the executive branch to oversee enforcement efforts. The bill, which has been criticized by consumer groups for benefitting only media companies and not artists, passed the Senate after a provision requiring the Dept. of Justice to enforce violations was removed. Several industry groups applauded the measure including the MPAA, the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) and the Copyright Alliance. (Cynopsis 10/15)

FCC chairman Kevin Martin’s plan to force cable operators to carry more than 500 low-power TV stations on their systems was thwarted yesterday. Martin’s idea lacked two votes to pass and his intention was to have the agency vote on it today in Nashville. Major cable companies, including Comcast Corp., were opposed to Martin’s proposal, saying the added TV station carriage would infringe the First Amendment and potentially hinder the national digital conversion on February 17, 2009. (Cynopsis 10/15)