admin's blog

According to thefutoncritic.com, TNT has given the greenlight to the thrilling, action-packed drama series LEVERAGE, starring Oscar(R) winner Timothy Hutton (Ordinary People, Nero Wolfe) and executive-produced by Dean Devlin (Independence Day, TNT's The Librarian) and John Rogers (Cosby). The series follows a team of thieves, hackers and grifters who act as modern-day Robin Hoods, taking revenge against those who use power and wealth to victimize others. TNT has ordered 13 episodes of LEVERAGE, which comes to the network from Devlin's Electric Entertainment. Devlin makes his directorial debut on the pilot, which was written by Rogers (Transformers) and Chris Downey (The King of Queens). LEVERAGE is slated to premiere on TNT later this year.

In LEVERAGE, Hutton plays former insurance investigator Nate Ford, a once-loyal corporate employee who had recovered millions of dollars in stolen goods for his employer. But when that employer denied his son's insurance claims and allowed the boy to die, he realized he could no longer work for such an entity.

Out of work and descending into alcoholism, Ford is hired by an aeronautics executive to recover airplane designs the executive claims were stolen by a rival company. Helping him are four highly skilled team members: Parker (Beth Riesgraf Alvin and the Chipmunks), an expert thief; Alex Hardison (Aldis Hodge Friday Night Lights), a specialist in Internet and computer fraud; Eliot Spencer (Christian Kane Into the West), a high-octane "retrieval specialist" who can take out a gang of henchmen without breaking a sweat; and Sophie Devereaux (Gina Bellman Coupling), a grifter who could win awards for her acting skills during difficult scams. At first the newly formed team is hesitant to trust each other after so many years working alone but being double-crossed changes the dynamic, ultimately forcing them to unite. They emerge from the job realizing they are far better working together than apart. Once they discover they can trust each other the group targets their cons toward the richest, the greediest and the most unjust.

Turner Network Television (TNT), television's destination for drama and one of cable's top-rated networks, offers original movies and series, including the acclaimed and highly popular detective drama The Closer, starring Golden Globe winner and Emmy(R) and Screen Actors Guild Awards nominee Kyra Sedgwick, and Saving Grace, a provocative new drama starring Oscar(R) winner and Screen Actors Guild Awards nominee Holly Hunter. TNT is also home to powerful one-hour dramas, such as Law & Order, Without a Trace, Cold Case, ER and Charmed. TNT and TNT HD can be seen on DIRECTV Channel 245.

BBC America's top-rated series, Torchwood, blasted into season 2 with guest star James Marsters (Buffy) and now episode six brings a highly anticipated cross-over with Doctor Who's Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) and a menacing guest role for Alan Dale (Ugly Betty, The O.C.). Created by Russell T Davies, lead writer on the current Doctor Who, the high-octane second season has taken a stronger Torchwood team through dare-devil action, temptation, heartache - and now they face a life changing event.

Torchwood, Season 2 airs Saturday, 9:00 p.m. ET/PT.

Captain Jack (John Barrowman) calls on Martha Jones to join the Torchwood team Gwen (Eve Myles), Owen (Burn Gorman), Toshiko (Naoko Mori), and Ianto (Gareth David-Lloyd) to help investigate mysterious deaths. When the trail leads to a sinister medical testing center, Martha must go undercover. But has Torchwood underestimated how far the testing center's director, Professor Copley (Alan Dale) will go to find medical breakthroughs? How safe is the Torchwood team?

BBC America's new Supernatural Saturday line-up kicks off with Doctor Who, season three, on Saturdays 7:00 p.m. ET/4:00 PT, followed by an encore episode of Torchwood at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT and the U.S. premiere episode at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT. BBC America can be seen on DIRECTV Channel 264.

According to thefutoncritic.com, A&E has greenlit the network's first original scripted drama series in more than six years with Cleaner, starring Benjamin Bratt, it was announced today by Bob DeBitetto, Executive Vice President & General Manager, A&E Network.

Inspired by the true story of a real life "extreme interventionist," Benjamin Bratt will star as William "The Cleaner" Banks, who after hitting rock-bottom from his own addictions during the birth of his twins, strikes a tentative deal with God. In exchange for a second chance, he vows to kick his addictions and dedicate his life to helping others. Now, along with his unconventional team, he helps people get clean from their own addictions of sex, drugs, alcohol and gambling by any means necessary.

Cleaner is moving into production shortly and is tentatively slated to premiere in Summer 2008. A&E will continue to develop additional scripted drama concepts while in production. A&E can be seen in HD on DIRECTV Channel 265.

SCI FI's Emmy and Peabody-Winning Series Returns March 28 With Two Back-To-Back Half-Hour Specials

The wait is finally over for Battlestar Galactica fans. SCI Fi's Emmy and Peabody Award-winning original series returns for its fourth original season on Friday, March 28 @ 10pm ET/PT with two back-to-back half-hour specials. The first new episode will premiere the following week, Friday, April 4 @ 10pm ET/PT.

Battlestar Galactica: Revisited (10pm) will serve up the essential information on the series' past three seasons, providing the uninitiated with an introduction to the characters, relationships and spine-tingling drama that have captured the imagination of audiences around the world. Galactica's executive producers, Ronald D. Moore and David Eick serve as guides, providing insights and revelations about the critically-acclaimed series.

SCI FI Channel is a television network where "what if" is what's on. SCI FI fuels the imagination of viewers with original series and events, blockbuster movies and classic science fiction and fantasy programming, as well as a dynamic Web site (www.scifi.com ) and magazine. Launched in 1992, and currently in 93 million homes, SCI FI Channel is a network of NBC Universal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies. SCI FI Channel can be seen in HD on DIRECTV Channel 244.

On Friday, DIRECTV Mas, the satcaster's Spanish-language programming service, announced an initiative with Spanish network V-me to raise awareness about the Feb. 2009 digital television transition among Latino viewers.

"One out of every five Hispanic homes are at risk of losing their local television signals after the transition, and DIRECTV Mas is committed to making sure Latino households continue to have access to quality television and entertainment," said John de Armas, vice president of DIRECTV's World Direct. "DIRECTV Mas and V-me have a shared mission to empower Spanish-speaking viewers and increase the general public's awareness of the digital transition."

The campaign includes a 60-second public service announcement (PSA) featuring actress Lupe Ontiveros that's produced in Spanish and English. The spot tells viewers what the transition will mean for them and explains the steps they will need to take to ensure continued service.

The PSA will be aired across the DIRECTV platform, on V-me and by public and commercial broadcasters nationwide.

According to tvpredictions.com, DIRECTV has added local High-Definition TV channels to four new markets. The new markets now receiving local HD channels are:

Paducah, Kentucky
The following broadcast networks are now available in HD: KFVS/CBS, WPSD/NBC, KBSI/FOX and WSIL/ABC.

Wichita, Kansas
The following broadcast networks are now available in HD: KAKE/ABC, KWCH/CBS and KSAS/FOX. DIRECTV says it's still working to add the remaining broadcast channels, such as NBC.

Louisville, Kentucky
The following broadcast networks are now available in HD: WHAS/ABC, WLKY/CBS, WDRB/FOX and WAVE/NBC.

Cedar Rapids-Waterloo, Iowa
The following broadcast networks are now available in HD: KGAN/CBS, KFXA/FOX and KWWL/NBC. DIRECTV says it's still working to add the remaining networks.

With the addition, the satcaster says local HD is now available in 76 cities, representing nearly 76 percent of U.S. TV households.
DIRECTV is expected to launch a new satellite this spring that will expand its capacity for local HD channels.

According to my-resource.com, WildBlue, one of the leading Satellite Internet service providers in America is on the verge of offering many value added services to customers. The company has one of the best technologies offered when it comes to Satellite Internet. It uses the Ka-band space which has nearly twice the allocation as compared to ku-band. The service is available almost anywhere in America at fast download speeds of 1.5 Mbps. In the first quarter of 2008 WildBlue will be launching services in tie-up with Google which will be an added attraction for every WildBlue customer. With the Google tie-up customers will be able to access the popular Google web services such as Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar shared calendering and many more powerful web gadgets from the 2000 odd Google tools. While speaking to the press at the announcement of the tie-ups David Leonard the Chief Executive Officer of WildBlue expressed his optimism about the alliance. He said that the partnership with Google is another step in WildBlue's commitment to offer value added and innovative services to customers. WildBlue customers will have a heady mix of Google news and other Google innovative products once the services are rolled out in the first quarter. Stephen Cho Head, Product Management Director at Google syndication expressed his optimism that customers of WildBlue will enjoy the wide range of innovative services offered by Google. As a premier Satellite Internet service provider in North America, WildBlue is taking all strategic and operational measures to ensure that customers get the best out of the services. During the initial period after the launch of its services, there were complaints that the company had sold its bandwidth limitation in certain areas. The company has come over these issues and expects to offer high quality services to customers. Apart from offering innovative services to home users, the company is also prepared to extend high end services to corporate customers. The company has signed a partnership agreement with UDcast to develop new products which would help enterprises benefit from a range of IP services over WildBlue broadband Internet services. Broadband Internet was never a preferred option for customers who wanted to use it for VPN purposes. After the partnership with UDcast, WildBlue has approved the UDcast UDgateway as an accelerated VPN solution for enterprise users. This removes one of the biggest hurdles of broadband adoption with corporates. From a business point-of-view the enhanced services will help WildBlue expand its footprint in the vast American corporate sector. The company keeps scouting for partners which will help to offer better services to home users and corporate customers. Customers can look forward to many innovative solutions from WildBlue in 2008. As one of the leading broadband Internet service providers in America, the company is committed to providing high end broadband Internet solutions.

Great news for San Francisco residents! KPIX-TV, the CBS owned station in San Francisco, has begun broadcasting its local news programs in High-Definition. The CBS station actually began airing Eye on the Bay, its evening magazine show, in high-def last year. But this week it added high-definition to its daily newscasts as well. KPIX is not the first in San Francisco to switch to high-def news. Other area stations, including KTVU, channel 2 in the Bay area, have already switched to HD newscasts. KPIX-TV can be seen on DIRECTV.

According to thefutoncritic.com, Comedy Central has firmed up its spring plans, which include the return of "South Park" and "Lil' Bush" as well as the launch of "Lewis Black's Root of All Evil", and the premiere of "Futurama: Bender's Big Score." "Park" and "Evil" will both air on Wednesday, March 12 at 10:00/9:00c and 10:30/9:30c respectively. "Evil" features Black presiding over comedians such as Greg Giraldo, Paul F. Tompkins and Patton Oswalt as they debate who's more evil. Among the "cases": "Oprah vs. The Catholic Church" and "Paris Hilton vs. Dick Cheney." The following night on Thursday, March 13 look for season two of "Lil' Bush" to kick off at 10:30/9:30c. While "South Park" and "Lil' Bush" are both scripted, neither production team is a WGA signatory - meaning they are unaffected by the strike, which is great news for Comedy Central fans. Comedy Central can be seen on DIRECTV Channel 249.

BRAVO FANS GET A DOUBLE DOSE OF "PROJECT RUNWAY" WITH NEW ONLINE EXCLUSIVES Content Includes Spin-Off Web Series With "Project Runway" Designer Malan Breton And New Online Fashion Challenge Featuring Season Four Cast NEW YORK February 7, 2008 Bravo's popular Emmy-nominated series "Project Runway" expands its coverage online with exclusive content including a new online fashion challenge featuring the current crop of designers and a spin-off web series with former designer Malan Breton as he tackles his dreams and tries to make it big. "Sew Not Over," featuring twelve designers from the current season of "Project Runway" in an exclusive online fashion challenge where fans vote one lucky designer a $10,000 grand prize, and "The Malan Show," a new web series following the aspiring designer and former season three Runway contestant, premiere exclusively on www.BravoTV.com this month. "Sew Not Over," sponsored by L'Oral Paris, will feature Carmen, Chris, Christina, Marion, Elisa, Jack, Jillian, Kevin, Kit, Rami, Ricky, and Steve as they create three looks on a budget of $1000 that will be judged by fans online. Bravo's cameras will capture the action and BravoTV.com will air the challenge from February 21 through March 6, where viewers can learn about the vision for each collections and vote for their favorite designers. "Sew Not Over" is produced by Magical Elves. Additionally, Bravo's cameras followed former "Project Runway" designer Breton for a year after his "auffing" from the show, and in his new series, viewers watch as his whirlwind career takes-off. Breton is the only designer to have shown in every New York Fashion Week since he was featured on "Project Runway," and his ultimate goal has been to show in the main tents at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. He got his chance in the tents this year on February 6th, and with Bravo's cameras rolling, viewers will see Breton dreams come true. The seven episode series will post new episodes weekly on www.BravoTV.com. Bravo can be seen on DIRECTV Channel 273.