Direct TV Dish

TLC will broadcast a new episode of American Chopper on July 10 at 9 p.m. and re-telecast at 11 p.m. Eastern time featuring the design and production of the Sikorsky Aircraft Tribute Motorcycle. The Learning Channel (TLC) airs the popular American Chopper TV reality series, which chronicles the lives of the OCC crew as they battle deadlines to create the custom choppers. The show, which has contributed to OCC’s quick rise to fame, debuted in September 2002 on the Discovery Channel and in 2007 on TLC, which is the Discovery Channel’s sister station.

“Reality Bites Back,” will be premiered on Thursday, July 17 at 10 p.m. ET on COMEDY CENTRAL. Reality Bites Back is first unscripted competition series, where ten comedians will vie for supremacy in weekly parodies of the most notorious reality shows around. The challenges may be absurd, but the game play is real and each week one unlucky comic will find him or herself booted off the program by our gleefully sadistic host, Michael Ian Black. The last one, er, “standing” will be crowned Lord of All Reality and receive a 50,000 dollar cash prize.

ESPN Networks coverage of the Germany-Spain EURO 2008 Final on Sunday, June 29 exclusively on Spanish-language sports channel ESPN Deportes was one of the highest-rated sporting events on Spanish-language television so far this year. The EURO2008 final delivered a 10.08 Hispanic household coverage rating (357,000 households) and delivered 647,000 Hispanic viewers. The live EURO2008 tournament games on ESPN Deportes (a total of 26) attracted a total of 1.5 million Hispanic households and 3.3 million Hispanic persons.

HDNet’s highly respected weekly news program “HDNet World Report,” has been awarded with the CINE Golden Eagle Award in the Professional News Division for “Turkey at a Crossroads.” “HDNet World Report” news program reveals the recent Turkish elections, told through the eyes of Hande Atay-Alam — a Turkish journalist who normally covers the United States for Turkish viewers. HDNet World Report receives fourth major award of the season. The program will be aired every Tuesday at 9:00 ET as a part of the network’s News and Documentary programming night. Dennis O’Brien is the executive producer of World Report.

College World Series Coverage on ESPN and ESPN2 have scored well and the coverage is second most-viewed college baseball game ever and have reached double-digit audience.
ESPN averaged 1,091,000 households for nine games, based on a 1.1 rating, and 1,408,000 total viewers, marking double-digit increases over 2007’s five telecasts: 27% in households (vs. 859,000), 22% in rating (vs. 0.9) and 26% in total viewers (vs. 1,120,000). In addition to being the most-viewed, this year’s coverage ties for the highest-rated with 2004 and 2006 coverage.
ESPN2 averaged 771,000 households for seven telecasts, based on a 0.8 rating, and 988,000 total viewers for an increase of 3% in households (vs. 747,000) and total viewers (vs. 956,000) over last year’s 10 games.

Spike TV has announced on Thursday that the network is planning to UFC light heavyweight bout between Anderson Silva and James Irvin live from Las Vegas on Saturday, July 19 at 9 p.m. ET. Spike TV, which broadcasted Anderson “The Spider” Silva burst onto the UFC scene with a devastating knockout of Chris Leben. Irvin has won four out of his last five UFC bouts but was recently scratched from UFC 85 in June after suffering a broken foot. A victory over the undefeated Silva would certainly be the career highlight thus far for the 29 year-old slugger.

Discovery Channel has ranked as No. 1 favorite channel in many aspects like network satisfaction, average perceived value among total adults, importance to the enjoyment of satellite service among viewers, aided awareness and in respondents having viewed the
Discovery Channel in the past 12 months. This is according to results of the 2008 Beta Research Satellite Dish Subscriber Study. Military Channel has ranked as the No. 1 mid-sized network mentioned as a favorite channel among men.

MSNBC has announced the launch of MSNBC Films, which is a documentary initiative that would help to produce films for television. Kurt Kuenne’s Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father will be the first movie by the MSNBC which was at the Slamdance Film Festival in January. Michael Rubin, MSNBC’s vice president of long-form programming said “MSNBC Films is another way for NBC News to partner with great independent filmmakers, who bring different takes on the world. We’re doing cartwheels over Dear Zachary.”

ESPN broadcast Wimbledon tennis action on its ESPN2 channel from June 23 through July 6. ESPN already had signed an agreement to broadcast the event with All England awn Tennis & Croquet Club to carry the prestigious tournament. ESPN2 started covering the match from 7.00 AM and will present about 100 hours of tennis coverage. ESPN Deportes will present tennis matches focusing Latino subscribers will serve up 51 hours from the London suburb, highlighted by daily coverage through the semifinal. DIRECT TV will offer “Matches On Now,” a graphic across the bottom of the screen with scores from each of the matches currently on the court channels, with the ability to tune directly to the match.

ESPN and NFL Network are to distribute the NFL contents through any one or more of ESPN’s existing expanded basic cable channels. ESPN’s former chairman and president of Disney’s ABC network and chief executive of the NFL Network are in high-level discussion to decide on the partnership. Many cable operators like Comcast, Time Warner have moved the network to sports tier. NFL Network also withheld eight games in 2006 season from its lucrative TV licensing packages to broadcast on its own channel in an attempt to gain leverage with cable operators in securing distribution for its network. But major cable operators such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision Systems and Charter Communications balked at the network’s push for digital-basic positioning and its pricey 70-cent monthly subscriber fee.