Wednesday Newsy Bits

This has nothing to do with San Diego or music, but I was a media buyer so I still pay attention to TV news, ratings, renewals and cancellations. I also especially love how divisive Rachael Ray is...you either love her or hate her and all her "sammys" and whatnot, so in some media news...

Rachael Ray Renewed Through 2009-10- CBS Television
Distribution's The Rachael Ray Show has been picked
up through the 2009-10 season, with renewals on the CBS owned-and-operated
stations in Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Dallas, Miami and
Denver.

Also, if you like your celeb gossip but hate the lame ass hosts on Extra, Entertainment Tonight and the Insider, then you can get excited about this:

Warner Bros. Announces Fox O&O Clearances for TMZ- Warner Bros. Domestic
Television Distribution has sold TMZ, a newsmagazine based on Web site TMZ.com,
to the Fox owned-and-operated stations for a fall 2007 launch.

Just in time for David Beckham and Posh Spice moving to LA and their inevitable conversion to Scientology. Yay! Because LA needs more space aliens.

And last one for media today:

Punk Songs? The Web? It's Not Your Father's AARP- Now approaching 50 itself,
AARP is heading off a midlife crisis with a new TV ad that celebrates the aging
process to the strains of the Buzzcocks' classic punk song "Everybody's Happy
Nowadays." The image overhaul, aimed in part at future AARPers now in their 30s
and 40s, is part of a long-running effort to reposition the organization
formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons (it has gone by
just AARP since 1999) as one devoted to vigorous, working people who are
50-and-up.

Is this cool or really frightening? It can't be any worse than the Teddy Bears with Iggy Pop song "I'm a Punk Rocker" on the Cadillac commercial...or can it?

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Make sure to pick up this week's CityBeat, featuring Cold War Kids on the cover.
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Fans of Silversun Pickups should head over to Spin.Com. SSPU played a Spin party and the video footage is available for streaming.
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If you were über lame like I was last night and happened to catch any of American Idol, you know that our famous girl ('I lived in my van') Jewel was a guest judge in Minneapolis. I'm a grown up now, so I'll refrain from commenting, but was anyone else hoping she would bust out a yodel? And was Paula totally trashed? A friend of a relative was her stylist for sometime and often shared stories of prescription drug abuse and crazy manic mood swings. If you haven't seen the video of her drunk interview last week, check it out on CatDirt's site. And lest you think I only watched American Idol, I was really just jumping channels from The Real Housewives of Orange County since I missed the final two episodes of last season. Because that, my friends, is quality television.
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New Releases this week:

ARAB STRAP 'Ten Years of Tears' (Vital)
DAMIEN JURADO 'Gathered in Song' (Made in Mexico)
FENNESZ 'Endless Summer (reissue)' (Editions Mego)
HEATMISER 'Yellow No. 5' (Frontier)
MATISYAHU 'No Place to Be' (Epic)
SALLY SHAPIRO 'I'll Be By Your Side' (Diskokaine)
SILKWORM 'Chokes! EP' (12XU)
URBAN LEGENDS 'Of Old Lost Days' (Contraphonic Music)
VARIOUS ARTISTS 'Music For Robots Vol. 2' (Music For Robots)
VIETNAM 'Vietnam' (Kemado)

There are also pre-sales for Arcade Fire, CYHSY!, and Bloc Party...

All of these are available by clicking the InSound button at the right side of this page. Free shipping on orders of $50 or more.

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That's all the news I've got for now...