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Fox TV Studios Signs Spurlock

Documentarian Morgan Spurlock (“Super Size Me,” “30 Days”) has signed a production deal with Fox Television Studios. Mr. Spurlock will develop and produce scripted and nonscripted projects for the company “As a filmmaker and producer, it’s so important to me…

Ali to Contribute to ‘Early Show’

Laila Ali, the pro boxer who danced her way to the finals of ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” and is co-hosting “American Gladiators” with Hulk Hogan on NBC, is joining CBS’ “The Early Show” as a contributing correspondent. “Early Show”…

E!, TV Guide Revamp Globes Coverage

E! and TV Guide Network have altered their plans for coverage of the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday. The award show was canceled because of the writers strike, and replaced by a news conference announcing the winners. With no actors…

Fox’s Chernin Says Networks Can Withstand Strike for Months

News Corp. President-Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin said he believes his company’s networks and most of the other networks are in good enough shape to withstand for a few months the writers strike, which is now more than two months…

Werner to Oversee WB’s Consolidated Domestic Distribution

Two distribution arms of the Warner Bros. Television Group, Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution and Warner Bros. Domestic Cable Distribution, are merging into one domestic distribution entity, the company announced today. Ken Werner, president of WBDTD since August 2006, will…

Blu-ray Wins DVD Battle, War May Shift

With Warner Bros.’ announcement last week that it would release high-definition DVDs exclusively in the Blu-ray format starting later this year, Sony has likely won the battle over Toshiba’s HD DVD format. The next question is whether the DVD format…

Profile: MGM Digital’s Douglas Lee

The player: Douglas Lee, executive vice president of worldwide digital media at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The play: Mr. Lee helped launch MGM’s U.S. high-definition channel on DirecTV in October, using all-day programming to showcase the studio’s movie inventory. About 1,000 of MGM’s…

Rounding Up HD News: Apple May Include Blu-ray Drives in Macs

Apple May Add Blu-ray Drives to Macs Apple may announce at the Macworld conference that it will add Blu-ray drives to its Macintosh computers, Fortune magazine’s Web site reported, citing Shaw Wu, an analyst at American Technology Research. Wu, citing…

This Week in HD: ‘Blue Angels,’ ‘Conan the Barbarian,’ ‘American Gladiators’

HD programming picks for Jan. 10-16: “Blue Angels,” “Conan the Barbarian,” “American Gladiators” Blue Angels: A Year in the Life” (Discovery HD). Monday, Jan. 10-Sunday, Jan. 13, check for times. Off you go into the wild blue yonder to follow…

Writers Guild, CBS Settle News Writers Contract

The Writers Guild of America and CBS have reached a tentative agreement regarding nearly 500 local and national CBS news writers, editors, desk assistants, production assistants, graphic artists, promotion writers and researchers. Those employees having been working without a contract…