IDOL Report: JLo Returning as Judge? Entire Panel to Be Replaced for Next Season

According to a report in The Hollywood Reporter, FOX executives had considered the idea of replacing new judge Mariah Carey with Season 11 panelist Jennifer Lopez midway through the current season. The plan however, was cut short after members of Carey's entourage threatened legal action. THR reports that the idea was a desperate attempt to halt the rapidly declining ratings for the singing competition and 'jumpstart' it with the return of Lopez. While no longer under consideration, Idol producers are still in negotiations to have the popular judge return for the season finale this May. According to sources close to the show, Carey will most likely not be returning for Season 13. In addition, a search may already be underway to replace the entire judge's panel before the show returns to the air next January. In response to the reports, a FOX spokeswoman told THR in a statement, "This is just another ridiculous Idol judge rumor, likely started by talks of Jennifer performing on the finale." While a representative for Carey denies the allegations, Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe told THR: "I have not been included in any conversation regarding replacing Mariah with Jen this season." Although IDOL began with relatively strong ratings this season, delivering a 6.0 rating with adults 18-49 and 17.9 million total viewers in its January premiere, the show has proven to be a ratings disaster for FOX. Last Wednesday's show averaged a 4.3 rating with adults 18-49, its worst performance since its debut season back in 2001. Adding salt to the wound is the success of competing series The Voice on NBC. With the addition of new judges Shakira and Usher, the singing competition has seen an increase to a 5.2 rating in the all-important 18-49 demographic. According to sources, FOX executives are highly concerned about this year's ratings slide and plan to 'shake-up' the judges' panel next season. Their hopes that Grammy winner Carey would spark viewer interest have not materialized. In fact, despite her eight-figure salary, Carey's appearance has been described as "passive and disengaged in her comments on the show, failing to generate the kind of fan following that Lopez had when she judged." Who may producers have been in mind for next year's show? A source tells THR that they may be searching for "not necessarily a star" to sit on the judges' panel. Perhaps a professional in the music industry with strong credentials may be the way to go.

 News source:tv.broadwayworld.com

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Futurama' to end seven-season run on Sept. 4 -- EXCLUSIVE

Comedy Central has decided not to renew Futurama, which means that the 31st-century-set animated comedy will end its 140-episode run on Sept. 4. The final 13 episodes, which represent the second half of season 7, begin airing on June 19 at 10 p.m. Futurama is no stranger to cancellation, of course: The series aired from 1999 to 2003 before Fox sent Fry & Co. into oblivion. After thriving in reruns on Adult Swim, Futurama was relaunched in 2007 with four-direct-to-DVD movies that Comedy Central ran in half-hour increments as a 16-episode fifth season in 2008-09. Comedy Central subsequently ordered a sixth season of 26 episodes, which aired in 2010-11, and a seventh season of 26 episodes, the first half of which debuted in 2012. The news did not come as a shock to executive producer David X. Cohen and creator Matt Groening, who had thought their space explorations were ending three previous times (after the Fox run, after the four movies, and after Comedy Central’s first 26-episode order). “I felt like we were already in the bonus round on these last couple of seasons, so I can’t say I was devastated by the news,” Cohen tells EW. “It was what I had expected two years earlier. At this point I keep a suitcase by my office door so I can be cancelled at a moment’s notice.” GET EW ON YOUR TABLET: Subscribe today and get instant access! The series won the Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program twice, in 2002 and 2011. It has declined in the ratings, though, averaging 2.6 million viewers in 2010, 2.3 million in 2011, and 1.7 million in 2012. Comedy Central’s EVP of Programming Dave Bernath views the network’s decision as “the natural end” to the show’s improbable comeback. “That’s a helluva run that few shows achieve, and especially given the fact that it came back to life, it’s really an amazing story,” he says. “I’m more thankful and feel a sense of gratitude toward the whole process — and that we found a way to keep going for 52 more episodes — than I really am even thinking about the ending. It’s a blessing that it came back and lasted so long.” The producers say that they are exploring options for a new home for the show, but there are no serious talks at this point. “We’ve been in this situation before and it’s tempting when you’re doing episodes that are as good or better than anything you’ve ever done to continue doing it,” Groening tells EW. “We’re catching our breath and seeing what the fans have to say. The experience of this show has been so much fun from the very beginning to now — everybody is so happy to work on this show — that it’d be a shame if we all went our separate ways… We would love to continue. We have many more stories to tell. But if we don’t, this is a really great way to go out… I think these episodes are the best ones we’ve ever done.” Cohen calls the final run — which features such guests as Larry Bird, Sarah Silverman, George Takei, Adam West, Dan Castellaneta, and Burt Ward — “our best ‘last season ever’ ever,” noting that there are “a bunch of episodes that I think are going to be classics.” In one installment, Futurama is “reincarnated as various cartoons of your youth, not legally resembling but somehow quite reminiscent of Scooby-Doo, Strawberry Shortcake, and G.I. Joe,” he says. (SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT) And the series finale, which features a wedding between Fry and Leela, is “a tasteful, emotional gorefest,” he raves. “There’s a lot of death but there’s also a lot of time travel, so that makes for an interesting combination.” Adds Groening: “It’s a really satisfying ending. It’s an epic ending. If indeed it’s the ending.” If, indeed. Somehow we’ll see Bender shout “Bite My Shiny, Revived Metal Ass!” down the road, right? “Perhaps Futurama will return in another form, on the Internet, or as a puppet show in the park,” says Groening. “Or maybe as a puppet show in the park on the Internet.” Deadpans Cohen: “As I said three times before, this is definitely the absolute end of the show. I don’t know why nobody believes me when I say that.”

 News source: insidetv.ew.com

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Rihanna goes topless while prepping backstage for Atlanta concert

Rihanna brought the heat to Atlanta Monday before she even got on stage. The 25-year-old pop princess ditched her top making for one sultry Instagram upload while getting pretty and primped to perform her show. The "Diamonds" singer looked flawless without even trying as she sat perched up wearing nothing but a yellow pair of underwear. RELATED: RIHANNA FLAUNTS BEACH BODY POOLSIDE IN MIAMI RiRi held up a towel that barely covered her upper body showing off some serious tan lines which were most likely from her relaxing day in the Miami sun the day before. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/rihanna-posts-topless-pic-atlanta-concert-article-

News source:www.nydailynews.com

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Reese Witherspoon Pulls Out Of TV Appearances Following Arrest

Following her arrest for disorderly conduct on Friday, Reese Witherspoon has cancelled a Tuesday appearance on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" as well as several other engagements. The actress did, however, attend the screening of "Mud" at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City on Sunday. Witherspoon was arrested and charged in Atlanta, Ga., after she argued with a police officer who pulled over the vehicle her husband Jim Toth was driving. Toth was charged with driving while intoxicated. The actress also cancelled a pre-taped segment scheduled for "Good Morning America" on Monday, which was scheduled to air on Wednesday. In response to her arrest, Witherspoon issued the following statement: "Out of respect for the ongoing legal situation, I cannot comment on everything that is being reported right now. But I do want to say, I clearly had one drink too many and I am deeply embarrassed about the things I said. "It was definitely a scary situation and I was frightened for my husband, but that is no excuse. I was disrespectful to the officer who was just doing his job. I have nothing but respect for the police and I'm very sorry for my behavior."

News source: www.starpulse.com

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FrackNation' filmmaker claims group of farmers was barred from

“FrackNation” filmmaker Phelim McAleer claims he, along with a group of farmers, was kept out of the Tribeca Film Festival screening of “Gasland Part II,” an anti-Fracking documentary. He said the exclusion came after he began asking the film’s creator, Josh Fox, some tough questions about fracking on the red carpet before the screening. “I was there on my own and I started asking the question and these farmers started joining in and asking the questions,” McAleer told FOX 411. “It became noisy. It was respectful, not intimidating.” But when it came time to enter the theater for the screening, McAleer said he and the farmers were told they could not come inside. “What happened was they said ‘oh no, you can’t come in. We don’t feel comfortable with you coming in’… They had security block us. They called the cops.” In an opinion article written for the New York Post, McAleer wrote about the farmers’ disappointment at being barred from the movie screening. “Sherry Hart, a mother of three and the wife of a gas worker, was particularly excited to be there. She lives in Pennsylvania and had never been to New York City, but she felt that it was important to make the journey to see what was being said about her and her life,” McAleer wrote in the article. “But she was not to find out.” The festival issued a statement about the incident, blaming a lack of space for the farmers’ exclusion from the screening. “Guests that had purchased advance tickets and were in line for the film 30 minutes prior, as our ticket policy states, were admitted into the screening,” read the statement sent to the FOX 411. “We are sorry that the few ticket holders who stayed outside gave up their seats to those who waited in line. The film is being shown three more times during the festival and we welcome them to come to any of those screenings. Tickets are still available.” But McAleer claimed in his article that there were empty seats at the screening and that his group was turned away for asking “inconvenient questions.” He added that he doesn’t expect the farmers to return to Manhattan to try to view the movie again. “People traveled from 4:30 in the morning to see the movie,” he said. “[Festival founder] Robert De Niro needs to send a limousine to [upstate] New York and Pennsylvania to bring these people in,” he suggested, adding that they will not be able to return on their own. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/04/23/fracknation-filmmaker-claims-group-farmers-was-barred-from-gasland-part-

 News source: www.foxnews.com

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A Comedy Show That Comes via a Hashtag

Next week, Comedy Central will host a five-day comedy festival that includes a lineup of legends like Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner alongside popular young comics like Amy Schumer and the director Paul Feig. Add to Portfolio Viacom Inc Go to your Portfolio » But there will be no smoky comedy clubs. No lone microphones and stools positioned on stage. No two-drink minimum. The festival will take place almost entirely on Twitter, with comedians posting video snippets of routines and round tables and posting jokes using the hashtag #ComedyFest. The partnership between Comedy Central, a cable cannel owned by Viacom, and Twitter represents the evolving relationship between television and social media. Twitter is often incorporated into programming with viewers using the site as a second screen while watching live television. But slowly, Twitter is becoming an outlet on which to watch video. In January, Twitter introduced Vine, a video-sharing service that lets users post six-second clips — brevity that matches Twitter’s model of 140-character messages. On Tuesday, as part of the festival, the comedian Steve Agee will host a “Vine Dining” party, telling stories in six-second videos. The cast of HBO’s “Veep” shares “vines” from the set, as does the cast of ABC’s hit “Scandal.” A&E puts 30-second videos of “Duck Dynasty” on Twitter and the entire third season of Fox’s “Raising Hope” had its debut on the site. “It’s not just hashtags appearing on your TV screen, but TV content appearing in your Twitter feed,” said Debra Aho Williamson, a social media analyst at eMarketer. For Comedy Central, the Twitter partnership is a small part of a larger strategy to become a branded entertainment company that does not rely just on nightly television viewing. In a changing media landscape, the channel’s series like “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “South Park,” and their young, mostly male audiences, have led the shift to online video viewing. As early as next month, Comedy Central will introduce a free, ad-supported app, called CC: Stand-Up. Designed to look and feel like a cable channel devoted to stand-up, the app will offer videos of comedians performing routines. A recommendation algorithm (similar to the one used by Amazon) will allow users to discover new comedians. If you watched Jeff Ross, for example, a web of other comics would pop up based on routines with similar topics (like mass transit), style (like dark humor) or other relationships (both like marshmallows). “One of these days we will be ambivalent about where people watch Comedy Central,” said Steve Grimes, the channel’s senior vice president for programming and multiplatform strategy. At least for now Viacom makes the vast majority of its revenue from cable subscribers who watch television the old-fashioned way and the advertisers who pay to reach them there. The company must adapt to the changing ways viewers watch video, but they must also preserve profits. Last year, Nickelodeon’s ratings dropped, partly because shows like “Dora the Explorer” and “SpongeBob SquarePants” had been too readily available on streaming platforms like Netflix. Nickelodeon’s predicament has served as a cautionary tale for Comedy Central as it extends its programming onto other devices. Comedy Central’s total prime-time audience has fallen to a nightly average of 816,000 viewers in the current season to date, from 1.1 million in 2008, according to Nielsen. Of those viewers, 258,000 are men ages 18 to 34, a demographic that disproportionately uses social media while watching television. In a study conducted by Nielsen in September and titled “How Chatter Matters in TV Viewing,” 54 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds said they had started watching a TV show because of Facebook, and 21 percent credited Twitter. Fred Graver, head of TV at Twitter, said partnering with Comedy Central and others was not about turning the service into a television distribution platform, but developing deeper relationships with programmers that eventually lead to more people joining Twitter. The relationship, he said, can be mutually beneficial. “What we spend a lot of time talking to networks and show runners about is, What do you put onto Twitter that will get people to change the channel or alert them to another way of enjoying the show?” Mr. Graver said. For now, Comedy Central looks at the Twitter partnership as a marketing strategy. In the future, the channel could work with a sponsor to bring in ad revenue. “It’s the same way we’d market our comedy through a billboard a few years ago,” said Michele Ganeless, president of Comedy Central. Ms. Ganeless has overseen Comedy Central’s push into other expansions of the brand, including consumer products like DVDs, T-shirts and coffee mugs related to its shows and comedians. Comedians have been particularly ahead of the curve in embracing new ways to distribute stand-up acts that used to rely on cable television. Last year, Louis C.K. sold a “Live at the Beacon Theater” special directly through his Web site and made $1 million in under two weeks. That partly inspired Comedy Central to develop a Web site that lets comedians sell their stand-up specials directly to consumers (with the channel getting a cut). Customers can buy a stand-up special starting at $5 and stream it onto their television screens or mobile devices. It remains to be seen how all these add-ons will ultimately affect Comedy Central’s audience and, in turn, its revenue. “I don’t think anybody is moving forward in the TV business or the brand business without finding ways to develop a true dialogue with consumers,” said Doug Herzog, president of Viacom Entertainment Group, which includes Comedy Central, Spike and TV Land. “What we’re still discovering and what will take a while is what exactly does that mean and what exactly does it add up to and how do you quantify it?” On Monday, Twitter will live stream the only #ComedyFest event that will take place with an actual audience, at the Paley Center for Media in Los Angeles. The panel discussion will include Mr. Brooks, Mr. Reiner and Judd Apatow, who will be the host. Mr. Reiner and Mr. Apatow will try to persuade the technology-averse Mr. Brooks to join Twitter. He has previously resisted, telling friends that it could not possibly capture his “impish” quality. Mr. Reiner has more than 20,400 Twitter followers. During the Oscars this year, he posted, “I was so excited to discover I was not in the in memoriam!” In an interview, Mr. Reiner took a break from writing a book, “I Just Remembered,” (“because it’s about all the things I forgot to put in the first book”) to discuss social media and comedy. Of Mr. Brooks, his longtime friend and partner in “The 2,000 Year Old Man” comedy skit, Mr. Reiner said: “We’ll see if we can get the old man to talk” on Twitter.

 News source: www.nytimes.com

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Kendra Wilkinson rushed to hospital following car accident report

Kendra Wilkinson Baskett was rushed to the hospital Sunday after a car accident, former playmate suffered no serious injuries. Kendra Wilkinson was rushed to the hospital Sunday after a car accident in the Tarzana neighborhood of Los Angeles, according to an Us Weekly report. The 27-year-old was spotted going into Providence Tarzana Medical Center earlier in the day. RELATED: KENDRA WILKINSON QUITS ‘SPLASH’ OVER FEAR OF HEIGHTS A source told the mag the former Playboy model was "in shock" and "really sore" after the traumatic incident. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/kendra-wilkinson-rushed-hospital-report-article-1.1323902#ixzz2RFAGuWip Kendra Wilkinson, left, son Hank Baskett IV, and husband Hank Baskett attending the LA premiere of "Frankenweenie" at the El Capitan Theatre in September 2012. Doctors examined her to determine whether she had broken any bones, but it appears the injuries she suffered were not too serious and a second source confirmed "she was discharged already." PHOTOS: CELEBRITIES TRAIN FOR 'SPLASH' DIVING COMPETITION SHOW Wilkinson, wife to former NFL player Hank Baskett, 30, and mother to 3 year-old Hank Baskett IV, just recently left the ABC diving show "Splash" due to her fear of getting hurt on the show. "I'm so sorry, everybody. It's bittersweet. One thing I don't do is quit. This is the first time in my life I've quit something," she said in a statement. "This will haunt me for the rest of my life." "Big mistake signing up for the show," she tweeted to her fans who were disappointed Read more:

News source: www.nydailynews.com

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