Television Industry

A reunion of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," a tribute to writer-producer Judd Apatow and salutes to several first-year series highlight the 25th annual William S. Paley Television Festival being announced today. Organized by the Paley Center for Media, the festival will be held for the first time this year at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood instead of the center's Beverly Hills facility. It runs March 14-27.

This was going to be the CW's breakthrough year. The little TV network was full of promise five months ago on the eve of its second season. Advertisers and even curmudgeonly TV critics were gushing over its new fall shows. Buzz on the Internet was wild in anticipation of the much-hyped "Gossip Girl," a soapy drama about pampered prep school students in Manhattan. But instead of catching fire, the CW's new crop of shows flickered in the ratings.

Walt Disney Co. has reached a deal to more than double its stake in Indian TV and movie content maker UTV, the two firms said, underscoring the U.S. entertainment firm's efforts to expand globally. Disney will raise its holding in UTV Software Communications Ltd. to 32.1%, the same level as UTV's founders, from 14.9%, by acquiring 9.35 million shares for 8.05 billion rupees ($203 million).

NBC Universal said Tuesday that it was abandoning its spring ritual of unveiling the network's fall schedule in an expensive, star-studded presentation at Radio City Music Hall in favor of smaller meetings with advertisers in three cities, including Los Angeles. "We are taking what has been a one-way conversation and turning it into a two-way dialogue with advertisers," said Marc Graboff, co-chairman of NBC Entertainment.

Heightening fears of an actors strike this summer, one of Hollywood's two major performers unions voted Saturday to break off its 27-year joint bargaining pact with its sister, the Screen Actors Guild, leaving each to negotiate separate new contracts with the major studios. The 11th-hour move by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists is the latest thunderclap in Hollywood's winter of discontent, which has seen the television industry upended by a 100-day strike by screenwriters.

"Survivor" producer Mark Burnett, voting his longtime business manager off the island, contended Wednesday in a lawsuit that even after Conrad Riggs received more than $25 million during their decade-long relationship, Riggs engaged in schemes to enrich himself further. Burnett's countersuit comes three weeks after Riggs originally sued Burnett, the producer of such reality TV shows as "The Apprentice" and "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?"

Last July, the television series “Ugly Betty” moved from Los Angeles, where it has been filmed for two years, to New York, on account of a recently tripled tax incentive. Given that the series, whose third season premieres tonight, is now being shot in the city where it is supposed to take place, you can't exactly call it a runaway production -- more like a "run-to production," perhaps. Still, it feels like a loss for the home team and an injury to local pride, not to say local pocketbooks.

NBC Universal's local television stations are seeing a "tremendous effect" from the economic climate, though advertising sales haven't been hurt at the national level yet, Chief Executive Jeff Zucker said Friday. The economic downturn in the U.S. has had a "profound effect on our local television stations, whose businesses were highly dependent on auto" industry and retail advertising, Zucker said at a conference in London.

When the Canadian dollar dropped to a three-year low last week, Judy Ranan wasted no time getting the message out to Hollywood. "82 cents! 82 cents! 82 cents!" blared the e-mail she sent to 400 studio executives and industry professionals. "Just in case you aren't already aware, the Canadian dollar has dropped significantly in value against the U.S. dollar in the past several weeks." Ordinarily, a falling currency would not be something to crow about.

Long before he set out for the White House, Barack Obama sought to adjust the colors on America's TV sets. Four years ago, fresh off his star-making keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, Obama challenged the television industry to live up to its responsibility as the country's "most powerful media" and accurately reflect the nation's population.