"All our shows will be testosterone-driven, but we want real soul and challenging characters to go with that," said the executive vice president of programming at, you guessed it, Spike TV. The cable network is unveiling its first crop of dramas in development, some from TV heavy hitters, reports Variety. Among the projects is "Amped," from "The X-Files" executive producers Frank Spotnitz and Vince Gilligan, a four-hour event series concerning a "mysterious outbreak in present-day Los Angeles." Also, actor and producer Denis Leary's Apostle Pictures is working on a private investigator show called "The Big Empty." The dramas are among …

After just seven months, TV Guide has killed off its spawn, Inside TV. The weekly magazine had been intended to reach young, celebrity-adoring television fans, but instead it reached ... well, hardly anybody. Newsstand numbers were deeply disappointing, reportedly half the 400,000 rate base, and there were few signs of an upward trend. Worse, the product had committed the most awful sin possible for a slick weekly: it failed to generate any buzz on the street. "We are now pursuing a more focused strategy of building upon our company's considerable core assets, including the TV Guide brand," said Rich Battista, …

MSNBC has axed two of the shows it launched amid much hoopla over the last year. "Coast to Coast," the midday political talk show featuring hosts Ron Reagan and Monica Crowley, had a 10-month run. "MSNBC at the Movies" and "Entertainment Hot List," both featuring Sharon Tay, have been killed as well. In making the announcements, MSNBC president Rick Kaplan said each would be replaced by (what else?) more compelling programming. The cable net recently signed husband-wife team Maury Povich and Connie Chung for a live-to-tape "topical" program, but it's not clear if that show will be slotted into the …

Looking toward yet another search-based revenue stream that is sure to rankle executives in newspaper suites all across the country, Goodle is poised to move aggressively into the classified advertising business, reports The New York Times. Many newspapers, particularly in major markets, have already felt the sting of the online-classifieds model, pioneered successfully by Craig Newmark's Craigslist. Craigslist, which is not advertiser-supported, is thought to have stolen huge volumes of ad linage from metro papers, starting with the San Francisco Bay market (which is where the Craigslist shop is based). The Times says Google's service would be called Base. "The …

In an effort to cut costs and mollify executives at its parent company, profit-conscious Tribune, the Los Angeles Times has announced that it will eliminate its Outdoors section. The decision, said the Times' new editor, Dean Baquet, was made entirely for financial reasons. In a story carried by his own paper, Baquet explains, "I made the decision that, instead of nibbling around the edges of the paper, it made sense to make one thing go away. Something had to go. It was a question of what." The Outdoors section, produced by a staff of 10, was launched in 2003. "There …

In a decidedly mixed message for the newspaper industry, which has experienced little positive news for years, a new report shows that readership at newspaper Web sites has soared 11 percent year to year, to 39.3 million unique visitors in October. Meanwhile, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations' latest FAS-FAX numbers, paid circulation at U.S. papers suffered a 2.6 decline. Editor & Publisher, citing Nielsen/NetRatings, reports that, among newspaper readers, "22 percent have shifted their readership preferences from offline to online sources. The majority of readers, 71 percent, still prefer print newspapers, while 7 percent divide their time …

The New York Post's Keith Kelly notes midway down his Media Ink column today that "It looks like Rachael Ray, the quirky and popular Food Channel chef who is a favorite of Oprah Winfrey, has a smash hit with her new magazine." The book, Every Day With Rachael Ray, was launched last month--amid plenty of problems, reports Kelly--by the Reader's Digest Association. RDA has not exactly been a launch factory in recent years, focusing instead on maintaining readers for its core title, which has been slipping in the U.S. for decades. Several magazines RDA developed internally never got out of …

It's a cheap, immature stunt, a naked play for ratings--and it may very well work. CBS is returning Ray Romano to prime-time television, but just for one night. He'll appear on the network's "The King of Queens" on Nov. 28, playing the familiar Ray Barone character that everyone loved for so many years before Romano himself decided it was time to put the cash cow back in the barn. In the sweeps episode, Romano and "King"'s co-lead, Kevin James, go out for a night on the town while James' wife, played by Leah Rimini, spends time with her dad. Sound …

Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired magazine, writes in his blog that Jack-FM, a fast-growing radio format, might be the wave of the future for commercial broadcast radio, but the jury's out. For sure, Anderson says, Jack is the wave of ... right now. Unlike most stations that play music, Jack-formatted outlets feature lengthy playlists, often of 100 songs or more. Some might refer to the music as "Adult Hits," and that's fair, but the point is that the playlists are large and diverse, usually specializing in music from the 1980s and 1990s that appeals to a generation accustomed to …

BC Beat, the excellent, recently launched blog from the staff of Broadcasting & Cable, reports on the goings and comings of "Nightline" staffers as the venerable ABC program prepares to end the Koppel period on the 28th of this month. The shows after Thanksgiving will not only be Koppel-less, they will be based in New York. Until now, "Nightline" came from Washington, and that was ever apparent from both its subject matter and its sensibility. The new format presumably will be less Capitol-centric. BC Beat reports that ABC's farewell party for Ted and Company is set for tomorrow night at …