Fred Thompson, former presidential candidate, has been hired by Westwood One to host a daily national radio to replace Bill O'Reilly. "The Fred Thompson Show" will debut on March 2. For two hours each day, Thompson will share his views on politics and other topics, along with guest interviews and listener phone calls. "As a one-time senator, presidential candidate, federal prosecutor, radio commentator, film and TV star," Thomspon clearly has the requisites for a good talk show host, says Bart Tessler, evp at Westwood One. O'Reilly's exit from radio left quite a hole, since some 425 affiliates carried …

A second Viacom cable network, BET Networks, is planning a ball at the inauguration of Barack Obama, a first for the cable channel. Viacom's MTV earlier announced it would hold its first inaugural ball in 16 years. BET is joining with the nonprofit organization set up by former Secretary of State Colin Powell to host an inaugural ball Jan. 20 in Washington. Jeanine Liburd, evp of BET, said the decision to do the inaugural event was easy. "If we're ever going to do a ball, this would be the one." BET will air an hourlong TV special during …

When the year began, many believed Western Europe would be able to avoid the worst effects of the credit mess developing in the U.S. because European countries generally avoided a huge build-up of consumer debt. But as the year progressed, Western Europe followed the U.S. into the mire anyway. The results, however, have been less harsh than in the U.S. Europe is expected to begin turning around in the third quarter 2009. Jonathan Barnard, ZenithOptimedia executive, expects the media economy in Europe to dip 1% next year. Adam Smith, GroupM futures director, forecasts a 1.7% contraction in the …

Apparently the older you get, the more TV you watch. Millennials, the generation of 14-to-25-year-olds, watch just 10.5 hours of TV a week, per new Deloitte research. That compares to 15.1 hours for Generation X (ages 26-42), 19.2 hours for Baby Boomers (43-61) and 21.5 hours for Matures (62-75). Millennials are not shunning broadcast and cable in favor of watching DVDs on their TV screens. In fact, they spend less time watching DVDs of movies and TV shows on television sets, 4.8 hours a week, than do Gen Xers, says Deloitte. Young people do spend more time watching …

Style will have to wait. With advertisers slashing 2009 budgets, Wenner Media's Us Weekly said it would delay the planned spring launch of a fashion/beauty spinoff, Us Style. The new title is now slated to debut in the fall. The spinoff was slated to publish quarterly with a circulation of 450,000, with about half coming from subscriptions and half coming from newsstand sales. If the title sold well, Us hoped to extend it to eight times in 2010. While the fashion/beauty category is already saturated with monthlies as well as spinoffs, such as People Style Watch, Us …

NBC doesn't want the glory of its Olympics coverage and Olympics-related ad sales to pass just yet. The net is airing a two-hour prime-time special about the Beijing Olympics on Dec. 27. "Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremony: TV Event of the Year" will be hosted by Bob Costas and Matt Lauer, who were the co-hosts when the event first aired in August. Lauer and Costas also will highlight the record-breaking performance of American swimmer Michael Phelps and other big moments from the Olympics. The show will include a look forward to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, which NBC …

Pro wrestling once helped save UPN. And now it's serving largely the same function for its successor network MyNetworkTV, attracting millions of young male viewers. But the net will need to develop other shows to succeed long-term. A couple of years ago, News Corp. launched MyNetwork with a full slate of low-cost telenovelas, such as the campy "Fashion House" with Bo Derek. But ratings were awful, so in October, the network began airing "WWE Friday Night SmackDown," which had previous gigs on UPN and the CW. The results have been dramatic: Season to date, MyNetwork is up 73% in …

Actor Michael Chiklis didn't lose any money in the escalating Bernard Madoff scandal, but early this year, he fell victim to another, similar Ponzi scheme. Now, he's turned his costly experience into creative fodder. He's developing a TV series "House of Cards," fueled by his own negative experience and material from others who have been hurt by investor scams. Chiklis says, "if I had hair, it'd curl," from the stories he has heard from people who have been burned in such ripoffs. "There are fascinating characters who perpetrate these schemes," he says. With emerging news about the Madoff …

The number of TV households that view TV programs via wired cable is at an 18-year low, while those that watch TV on satellite and other alternative delivery systems keeps growing. According the Television Bureau of Advertising's analysis of Nielsen data, alternative delivery penetration reached 28.7% in Nov., an all-time high. Direct broadcast satellite accounts for 28.4% of those households, up from 27.6 % in Nov. 2007. In contrast, wired cable penetration remained constant at 61.3%, the lowest it has been since Feb. 1990. In 26 markets, a majority of consumers are getting their TV programming via …