Classic Online TV

Updated. “It’s the beginnings of what a cable television network would look like if it was run by lunatics.” Rob Barnett, Hollywood veteran and founder / CEO of My Damn Channel, likes juicy soundbites but he is dead serious about recreating the cable TV experience on the Internet. Next week, Barnett’s company is going to take its biggest step yet towards bringing TV-style comedy online. My Damn Channel is going to launch a daily live comedy show on YouTube, complete with live interviews and real-time interaction with the audience.

The show is going to be hosted by Beth Hoyt, and feature interviews with Hollywood stars and YouTube celebrities alike. Viewers

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Freshkills doesn’t sound that much like Future of the Left or McLusky, but I associate the band with those groups anyway. The New York quintet shares many characteristics with Andy Falkous’ bands: abrasiveness, an entertaining form of existential agitation, and vulpine wit honed in the bars and clubs of a big city rock scene. Like Falkous, Zachary Lipez clings desperately to his sense of humor like a man holding on to a plank in a flood. He doesn’t want to know what will happen if he lets go.

Many fans of the band consider the excellent 2007 set “Creeps and Lovers” the purest expression of Freshkills in action. But with “Raise Up the Sheets,” which comes out March 13, they’ve outdone themselves.

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Lifeline Live: Your ticket to all that’s entertainment by Ann Oldenburg Davy Jones 911 call: ‘Ambulance, please. Hurry’ Duchess Kate takes tea with Queen, Duchess Camilla

Eddie Murphy still wants to host the Oscars

By Ann Oldenburg, USA TODAY Updated

Didn’t like Billy Crystal’s Oscar hosting job? You may get to see Eddie Murphy, who was set to do it originally, take the helm yet.

“It’s still something that I would like to do one day, because all the best comics have done it,” Eddie told Access Hollywood’s Shaun Robinson as he promoted his new film, A Thousand Words, in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

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LOS ANGELES – The promoters of what was to have been Michael Jackson’s comeback concerts were dropped on Tuesday from a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the singer’s father Joe.

Joe Jackson had alleged that promoters AEG Live were negligent in hiring Dr. Conrad Murray to care for Jackson as he prepared for the 2009 concerts.

But a Los Angeles judge ruled that AEG Live should not be a defendant in Joe Jackson’s lawsuit while the company is already named in a separate lawsuit filed by the “Thriller” singer’s mother Katherine Jackson.

AEG Live attorney Marvin Putnam called the decision “a major victory” for the concert promoter, which has denied any wrongdoing.

Murray was convicted in November of the involuntary manslaughter of Jackson, 50, through an overdose of the anesthetic propofol and sedatives.

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Netflix may have lost a few customers in the wake of last year’s Qwikster debacle, but it still has very ambitious goals for subscriber growth: the video service wants to eventually be two to three times as big as HBO, which would equal between 60 million and 90 million domestic subscribers, according to a presentation published by CEO Reed Hastings this week. The slide deck, titled “Netflix Business Opportunity,” is meant to explain the company’s business to potential new hires but it also provides interesting insights into Netflix’s goals as well as its take on competitors and the changing video marketplace.

Hastings remarked in the presentation that HBO currently has about 30 million U.S. subscribe

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