REPORT: COWELL TO RETURN TO U.K. TALENT SHOW

Simon Cowell, who left the British version of America’s Got Talent (Britain’s Got Talent) to focus his energy on the launch of The X Factor in the U.S., will return to the show next year, the London Daily Mirror reported today (Wednesday), citing a source at ITV, the commercial broadcaster. Ratings for both BGT and […]

MCCARTNEY TO TALK TO SCOTLAND YARD ABOUT HACKING

Paul McCartney said on Thursday that he plans to meet with Scotland Yard following allegations by ex-wife Heather Mills that a voicemail from McCartney while they were in the throes of breaking up had been hacked by a reporter working for the London Daily Mirror. Speaking via satellite from Cincinnati to the Television Critics Association […]

PIERS MORGAN LASHES BACK AT HEATHER MILLS

CNN host Piers Morgan has responded angrily to remarks made by Heather Mills, the ex-wife of Paul McCartney, implicating him in the widening telephone-hacking scandal in the U.K. On Wednesday, Mills said in an interview with the BBC that she had been contacted in 2001 by a journalist — not Morgan — working for newspaper […]

BRITAIN EXPANDS HACKER PROBE

Suggesting that it may now have evidence that reporters and/or their accomplices working for the now shuttered U.K. tabloid News of the World may have hacked into computers or engaged in other forms of illegal eavesdropping, Scotland Yard is reportedly expanding the scope of its original investigation. The Wall Street Journal reported today (Monday) that […]

PIERS MORGAN FACES NEW QUESTIONS RE PHONE HACKING

James Hipwell, a former writer for the London Daily Mirror, has claimed that writers for that tabloid also engaged in telephone hacking when it was edited by Piers Morgan, the CNN host and America’s Got Talent judge. “It was seen as a bit of a wheeze — something that was slightly underhand but something many […]

U.K. CULTURE SECRETARY SAYS HE’LL APPROVE BKYB DEAL

As was widely predicted, British culture secretary Jeremy Hunt announced today (Thursday) that he has agreed in principle to permit Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp to acquire the 61 percent of satellite broadcaster BSkyB that it does not already own, contingent on the company’s separating itself from Sky News, its 24-hour equivalent of CNN. (The satellite […]

X FACTOR PRODUCER: COWELL DID NOT FIRE CHERYL COLE

The firing of British singer Cheryl Cole as a judge on the upcoming U.S. version of Simon Cowell’s The X Factor had still not been acknowledged officially on Wednesday, a week after it had been leaked to the gossip website TMZ. None of those directly involved has commented — not Fox TV, which plans to […]

MORGAN ALREADY REVAMPING HIS CNN SHOW

CNN’s Piers Morgan has conceded that he has been undergoing a baptism of fire as he attempts to anchor a nightly live news show about late-breaking events in Egypt. “This was a completely new experience for me … and a bit nerve-wracking,” he told today’s (Thursday) New York Post. Unlike his predecessor, Larry King, who […]

MASSIVE BRITISH AUDIENCES TUNE IN TO TWO ITV SHOWS

Two British television shows each attracted massive audiences on Thursday and Sunday. According to preliminary ratings, a live episode marking the 50th anniversary of the primetime soap opera Coronation Street attracted 15 million viewers Thursday, and Simon Cowell’s talent contest The X Factor averaged 17.2 million on Sunday (peaking at 19.4 million). Both shows are […]

MORGAN CROWNED NEW CNN KING

CNN on Wednesday confirmed that Piers Morgan will replace retiring interviewer Larry King. Morgan is best known in America as a judge on America’s Got Talent (he also serves as a judge on the British version of the show) and the 2008 winner of NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice. He is also a former editor of the […]

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