Tv Programs

Ashley Judd throws a pink ball across her hotel room. One of her two cockapoos -- either Buttermilk or Shug -- runs for it. In town recently to promote "De-Lovely," a film about Cole Porter's complicated relationship with his wife, Linda (played by Judd), she exudes physical busy-ness. She confesses that she can be "manic" when it comes to certain things, such as traveling or following her husband, race-car driver Dario Franchitti, around the world for his races.

It wasn't the scoop to end all scoops, but as stories go, it was a pretty good one. It was also the last one for Russia's popular television news show, "Namedni," which was canceled Wednesday and its host, Leonid Parfyonov, fired after refusing to can an exclusive interview with the widow of former Chechen leader Zelim- khan Yandarbiyev, who prosecutors in Qatar believe was killed by Russian secret service agents.

The U.S. Education Department has cut the money for captioning nearly 200 TV programs, citing a 1997 mandate from Congress only to pay for captioning of "educational, news and informational" programming. Advocates for the deaf say they haven't been able to find out why the department has decided to finance some programs and not others, or who's making these decisions.

PanAmSat Corp., the largest U.S. commercial satellite operator, said it would transmit programming for News Corp.'s Fox TV networks, raising speculation that News Corp. would sell its controlling stake in PanAmSat. News Corp. last year bought a 34% stake in PanAmSat's parent company, El Segundo-based Hughes Electronics Corp., which owns 81% of Wilton, Conn.-based PanAmSat.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, at least on DVD. Though the yuletide holidays are more than six weeks away, numerous Christmas-themed TV shows, movies and animated specials have already been released on DVD. One of the swingingest of the new releases is "Happy Holidays With Bing and Frank" (Hart Sharp, $20), a bizarre but very cool TV special starring Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra that aired in 1957.

There are many ways to celebrate the elevation of Mother Teresa toward sainthood. Nuns from her order, in their characteristic habits -- blue-trimmed white saris -- have flooded this city ahead of today's papal Mass in her honor. Street vendors are hawking Mother Teresa statues and Mother Teresa refrigerator magnets. Exhibits have been opened chronicling Mother Teresa's life, complete with her sandals, her gold Nobel Peace Prize medal and, starting next week, a vial of her blood.

"The Big Broadcast of 1938"* (1938) "College Swing"* (1938) "Give Me a Sailor" (1938) "Never Say Die"* (1939) "Road to Singapore"* (1940) "The Ghost Breakers"* (1940) "Road to Zanzibar"* (1941) "Caught in the Draft"* (1941) "Louisiana Purchase"* (1941) "My Favorite Blonde"* (1942) "Road to Morocco"* (1942) "Star-Spangled Rhythm"* (1942) "They Got Me Covered"* (1943) "The Princess and the Pirate" (1944) "Road to Utopia"* (1945) "Monsieur Beaucaire"* (1946) "My Favorite Brunette"* (1947) "Where

The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday rejected a push by Hollywood producers and writers to reimpose rules requiring the major television networks to buy a minimum amount of their programming from independent production companies.

A landmark television drama thought lost for 49 years and the only radio coverage known to exist of the 1935 trial of the man convicted of kidnapping and murdering Charles Lindbergh's baby son were both recently discovered and will be added to the collection of the Museum of Television & Radio, museum officials announced Tuesday. Both programs were found by the same enterprising documentarian, Joseph Consentino, during his research for a History Channel project.

I ran into a sportswriter here who doesn't think the word "I" should appear anywhere in a column. Obviously we were never going to see eye to eye on this because the pipsqueak is two feet shorter than I am. But I'm the sensitive sort, as you know, so when evidence mounted, and I began to hear from e-mailers who felt the same way, saying they didn't want to read what "I" think about the Giants' perky P.A. announcer, or how "I" feel about Barry Bonds, "I" listened. So enough about me today.