Ben Stiller's Red Hour sells two more comedies to ABC Studios

Ben Stiller's Red Hour Television is continuing to pump out comedies for ABC Studios.Following the sale of "Complikated" in October, the production company has sold network's production division two new series - "You're Not Doing It Right" and "Between Two Kings" - a rep for Red Hour told TheWrap on Monday.Comedian Michael Ian Black writes, stars and produces in the former, a half-hour single-camera...

Read More..

Participant Media plans cable TV network targeting millenials

 Entertainment company Participant Media, one of the backers of the hit historical drama "Lincoln", will launch a cable TV network next summer with programming that focuses on social issues of interest to the millenials generation of teens and young adults.The channel's original programming, films and documentaries will be aimed at viewers age 18 to 34 in the large demographic group known as...

Read More..

"Family Guy," "Haven" episodes pulled due to Newtown shootings rescheduled

In a possible sign that the nation - or at least network programmers are beginning to regain their composure after Friday's horrific school shootings in Newtown, Conn., episodes of Fox's "Family Guy" and Syfy's "Haven" have been rescheduled.The "Family Guy" episode "Jesus, Mary and Joseph," which was initially scheduled to run on Sunday before being pulled from the schedule following the massacre,...

Read More..

Leah Remini sued by former managers over "Family Tools" commissions

Leah Remini's new TV gig is already giving her a headache, months before it even starts. Former "King of Queens" star Remini is being sued by her former managers, the Collective Management Group, which claims that it's owed $67,000 in commissions relating to her upcoming ABC comedy "Family Tools," which debuts May 1.In a complaint filed with Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, the Collective says...

Read More..

National Geographic marks anniversary with "Exploration" of Titanic, Lighting Strikes, Genghis Khan

 The National Geographic Channel is celebrating the 125th anniversary of the National Geographic Society with a new "Night of Exploration" on Fridays that will look at Titanic, Stonehenge, Easter Island, and more of the world's fascinating places and mysteries.Beginning January 11, the network will air programs about exploration every Friday night from 8 to 10 p.m. On that night, it will premiere...

Read More..

Spanish poet wins Cervantes literature prize

MADRID (AP) — Spanish poet and essayist Jose Manuel Caballero Bonald has won the 2012 Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's highest literary honor.Education Minister Jose Ignacio Wert said Thursday the 86-year-old was chosen for the contribution his life-long work has made to enriching Spanish-language literature.The €125,000 ($167,000) prize generally alternates between Spanish and Latin...

Read More..

Review: 'Golden Age' offers a sneak pique at opera

NEW YORK (AP) — Jealous sniping has always been in fashion, whatever the century.The backstage passions and vanities of a quartet of popular opera singers, plus a revered diva and a couple of renowned composers illuminate the New York City premiere of "Golden Age," Terrence McNally's play about an important evening in the life of 19th-century Italian opera composer Vincenzo Bellini.A mischievously...

Read More..

London's Dickens Museum reopens after makeover

LONDON (AP) — Charles Dickens' London home has gone from "Bleak House" to "Great Expectations."For years, the four-story brick row house where the author lived with his young family was a dusty and slightly neglected museum, a mecca for Dickens scholars but overlooked by most visitors to London.Now, after a 3 million pound ($4.8 million) makeover, it has been restored to bring the writer's world to...

Read More..

When the World Was ‘Mad About Brubeck’: Dave Brubeck, 1920-2012

Dave Brubeck—recently called "the reigning elder statesman of jazz" by the Washington Post—died Wednesday in Connecticut on his way to a cardiology appointment, one day shy of his 92nd birthday. But he'll really outlast the apocalypse. Donald Fagen assured us so, in his classic song "New Frontier," where the Steely Dan singer, projecting himself back to the bop-crazed 1950s, sounded positively...

Read More..

What the devil? Royal Opera stages Meyerbeer rarity

LONDON (Reuters) - The audience at London's Royal Opera House is in for a big surprise on Thursday night.They will witness German composer Giacomo Meyerbeer's 1831 grand opera "Robert le Diable" (Robert the Devil), a work so rarely performed that virtually no one has seen it, let alone sung it or played it.In fact, the last time Britain's prestigious Royal Opera House put on the epic work was in 1890,...

Read More..