entertainment - "television"

Music for Screens: 'True Blood,' 'Life' add music to advance plots -- Two music-driven television shows -- one new, one returning -- demonstrate how placements can play a pivotal role, either by drenching scenes in song or by very carefully placing just a song or two for lengthy stretches.

TV Reviews: Good intentions don't necessarily make for satisfying television, and such is the case with 'Project Earth,' a Discovery Channel series that promises to 'put the most ambitious geo-engineering ideas to the test' in addressing the threat of global warming.

Music News: Black Iris finds success working for 'the Man' -- If Black Iris were an actress, you might be kind of sick of seeing her face right now. The work of this music collective -- with outposts in new york, Los Angeles and Richmond, Va. -- is all over primetime television, from the anthemic swells in a spot for Al Gore's We initiative to the bass-heavy rock of a Miller Lite commercial to the sweet acoustic jangle in an ad for Sharp flat-screen TVs.

THE Beijing Games has become the single most watched event in Australian history, outranking the Sydney Games in total viewers so far due to a combination of television and unprecedented internet coverage.

The Amazing Race 13 debuts on CBS at the end of September, but at the beginning of the month, the Travel Channel will begin broadcasting season 12 of the show in prime-time on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.The cable network has also acquired the rights to season 13 and, if it's produced, the 14th season. Previously, GSN rebroadcast the show starting in 2005, while the Fox Reality Channel is currently re-broadcasting the 11th and all-stars season, having started with the ninth season earlier this year.In a statement, Travel Channel president Patrick Younge said the show 'is simply the best travel reality format in the world' and 'an iconic American television series that really taps into what exploration is all about -- not only the incredible riches that the world has to offer travelers -- but the incredible transformative powers that travel brings about in people.' He neglects to mention that travel--and competition for $1 million--sometimes brings about incredibly asswipish powers

Stage actors love theater. Film actors see movies. Musicians dig concerts by their fellow musicians. But TV performers just don't seem to catch much TV, according to an unofficial survey spanning years of interviews I've had with them.

Technology News: Duo unveil new 'widget' project -- Hoping to plant their flags on the screens of Internet-connected television sets, Intel Corp. and Yahoo Inc. unveiled a new project Wednesday to populate those screens with tiny programs called widgets.

Film Festivals: 'Mars,' 'Fringe,' 'Tim' join Premiere Week -- The new york television Festival has announced its lineup for the 2008 edition of Premiere Week, featuring shows from ABC, Fox, CBS, the CW, NBC and HBO.

New york City has the Reality TV School that teaches aspiring reality whores how to get on TV, and thus it makes sense that Los Angeles would offer a workshop for people who want to help/exploit those people.The two-day Reality TV Boot Camp workshop promises to teach its participants how to produce reality shows, from concept to actual production. It's $300 for two days, and after offering workshops throughout the summer, one more is scheduled for Sept. 13 and 14.The workshop's web site promises it 'will prepare you as a producer, director, and field producer to work in the largest growth sector in television ... through lectures, hands-on exercises and workshops, all supported by one-on-one mentoring with seasoned television show-runners, directors and producers.' Among other things, it covers 'treatments and demo reels,' 'budgets and scheduling,' 'becoming a master interviewer,' 'field producing,' and 'crew and staffing.'The producers teaching the workshop are Luis Barreto, who

French television authorities say they've banned programming aimed at toddlers and babies as possibly hurtful to small children's development....