Daily Marauder

BROADCAST/CABLE

While The CW has not announced anything, Variety reports the network is close to signing a deal with an unnamed media buying outfit, to sublet Sunday nights.  The deal turns over the Sunday 7-10p block to an advertising entity who would then develop and produce the programming, and then sell the ad time. The move gives The CW latitude to focus all of its efforts on Monday-Friday, and effectively removes the headache of what has arguably been one of the networks toughest nights to program and sell. (Cynopsis 5/9)

Univision’s new novela Fuego en la Sangre delivered 2.97 million A18-49 viewers during its premiere week (4/28-5/2) and 5.1 million total viewers. (Cynopsis 5/9)

Whoopi Goldberg will host The 62nd Annual Tony Awards, airing live from Radio City Music Hall in New York on June 15 at 8p on CBS. (Cynopsis 5/9)

HBO has signed Oscar-winner Alexander Payne to direct and co-executive produce the potential pilot of a comedy titled “Hung,” about a man who discovers that size really does matter. The project, though not officially greenlighted for a pilot, is the first show to come through the pipeline since Sue Naegle became entertainment president. (The Hollywood Reporter 5/8)

“The Gong Show,” that peculiar mix of wacky celebrity judges and wackier contestants that ran in the late 1970s, is being resurrected by Comedy Central. The new version, which will debut July 17, will be hosted by comedian Dave Attell, who had an earlier Comedy Central series titled “Insomniac With Dave Attell.” (Variety 5/8)

Double-digit growth in ad revenue and strong international distribution helped Discovery Communications rake in $795 million in first-quarter revenue, a 12% increase over the comparable period a year earlier. And in related news, John Malone’s Discovery Holdings, which controls Discovery Communications, said in securities filings that it hoped to take the cable company public in the third quarter of 2008, not in the second quarter, as earlier filings had indicated. (The Wall Street Journal 5/9, Reuters 5/8)

Influential analyst Jessica Reif Cohen of Merrill Lynch said she was putting her money on cable networks to outperform their broadcast counterparts in the 2008-09 upfront advertising bazaar. Reif Cohen said cable nets would take in between $7.45 billion and $8.06 billion during the upfront. (Multichannel News 5/8)

The FCC announced the creation of an experimental test market – the Wilmington, N.C. DMA – for the full-power television station transition to all-digital broadcasting. In the FCC experiment, full-power stations in the Wilmington market will shut off their analog signals on September 8, 2008 – a full five months before the national transition to digital television (DTV) occurs on February 17, 2009. (Cynopsis 5/9)

Charter has introduced a new promotion to offer consumers gasoline gift cards in exchange for signing up for new services. People who sign up for a single service receive a $25 gift card, those who sign up for two services receive $50 and those who go for video, voice and broadband get $100. (TMC Internet Telephony 5/8)

Dish Network said that when Wilmington, N.C., goes all-digital Sept. 8, the company would be there to help. Dish announced that it would have its new DTV-to-analog converter box on store shelves before the first market in the country began its transition. (Broadcasting & Cable 5/8)