TV Guide Network today announced plans to launch Hollywood 411, a daily one-hour entertainment newsmagazine show, which is slated to premiere in January 2008.Hollywood 411 will focus on the day’s top entertainment news stories and will offer on-scene interviews with big-name TV, film and music celebrities. TV Guide Network host Madison Michele will anchor the broadcast. "Hollywood 411’s hour-long format will leverage our network’s strengths in covering entertainment and celebrity news in-depth," says Matthew Singerman, TV Guide Network’s senior vice president of programming and production. "It will distinguish the program from some of the other entertainment offerings currently available on TV."Veteran news and entertainment producer Jerry Burke will serve as 411’s senior executive producer. Burke comes to the network from the Fox News Channel, where he increased ratings 300 percent as executive producer of daytime programming. He has also worked as bureau c...
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Warner Bros. syndicated division has cleared a fall 2008 daytime talker to be hosted by actress-comedian Bonnie Hunt. The Reporter also reports deal extensions for Ellen (through 2011) and Extra (through 2012).... Sci Fi Channel has ordered a third season of Eureka, to launch in summer '08, and a second round of Destination Truth.... Showtime has erected or modified fountains in 14 U.S cities, including in Times Square and Hollywood & Highland, to flow red, promoting the Season 2 premiere of Dexter. The cabler, though, insists the color choice is to match its logo, not to symbolize blood. Uh-huh. Tell it to Doakes.
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As part of an interview airing on Monday's Extra, Chad Lowe admits, "It has been a tough year, and not something I expected," referring, of course, to his split from Hilary Swank, who famously "outed" her husband's substance abuse problem in a Vanity Fair profile. "I was disappointed that the details of our relationship became public," he says, "[But] they were absolutely true, absolutely true. I am so grateful to Hilary for her support of me in a very difficult time in my life, three-and-a-half years ago. What hurt me more than anything is that people would think that she wasn’t there for me, and she was. I will always love her."Also during Extra's Monday Lowe-down: a preview of his role on the new season of 24.
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Michael Douglas tells Extra he was misquoted in a GQ interview that had him questioning Brad Pitt's decision to dump you-know-who for you-know-lips. ("Leaving that beautiful wife to go hold orphans for Angelina? I mean, how long is that going to last?" the mag quoted Douglas as saying.) "I didn't say it," he reportedly told GQ, which responded with the statement, "We stand by [the quotes] 100 percent. For him to suggest we made them up is laughable."
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King Kong's Jack Black has eloped with his girlfriend, musician Tanya Haden, People reports.... Desperate Housewives' Nicollette Sheridan got engaged to singer-beau Michael Bolton over the weekend.... Extra is saying that Teri Hatcher and Ryan Seacrest had a "first date" — with "a group of friends," just as any online dating service would advise — Saturday night at a Los Angeles restaurant. The supposedly smitten American Idol host hopes never to hear Hatcher say, "Seacrest... out!"
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