Daily Marauder

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With baseball season officially underway, HBO announced a renewal of its baseball-themed comedy series Eastbound & Down for a second season. The Danny McBride-headlining series, about a former MLB star pitcher returning to his home town to teach P.E., will begin production later in 2009 with new episodes scheduled to hit HBO’s lineup next year. (Cynopsis 4/9)

FOX is playing off the uncertain economic times with a new reality competition series called Someone’s Gotta Go. The series, from Endemol USA, will go inside real American businesses giving employees the chance to decide which colleague will be laid off. (Cynopsis 4/9)

Leah Remini rejoins the world of sitcoms in the ABC comedy pilot Don’t Try This at Home, per THR. From ABC Studios, Don’t Try This at Home is about marriage and parenting from the perspective of three couples. (Cynopsis 4/9)

Part of AMC’s programming magic over the past few years, according to network chief Charlie Collier, has been to partner edgy original shows with feature films that present a related theme. “When ‘Mad Men’ debuted, we led into it with ‘Goodfellas,’” he said. “The notion was that you’d take this iconic Martin Scorsese piece about a group of guys who thought they could play without rules, and it led to an iconic television program about a group of men who again thought rules did not apply.” The Wall Street Journal (4/8)

Shares of Disney, Time Warner, News Corp. and other media giants are seeing gains. But Wall Street analysts warn: “The rally will meet resistance once the market realizes that the first-quarter results are below consensus.” Within a few months, “things turn ugly again.” (Iwantmedia 4/9, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/finance/news/e3i4f09d44ee2455d728c72b6547178e4bd 4/8)

Michael Copps, acting chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, says he intends to “right the injustice” of the lack of diversity in U.S. broadcasting. The agency is OKing a proposal to improve data collection about media owned by women and minorities. (Iwantmedia 4/9, http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090408-711361.html 4/8)

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes was awarded compensation in 2008 valued at about $21.5 million, according to an Associated Press tally of data filed with regulators. That figure is up 11% from a year ago, as the company cut costs and moved to shed assets such as its cable unit. (Iwantmedia 4/9, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090408/ap_on_bi_ge/time_warner_executive_compensation 4/8)