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E! Looks to Rebound
With Reality, Scripted Mix

NEW YORK — E! is launching
a new programming strategy
with its current mix of
reality series, topical shows
and comedies, and will add
scripted series in 2013.

The female-targeted network
will expand its original
programming lineup in November
with several new
shows and a new night for its weekly pop culture
series The Soup, which will move from Friday to
Wednesday, Lisa Berger, E! president of entertainment
programming, said.

The network is hoping to improve on its thirdquarter
primetime ratings figures, which fell 8%
among total viewers and 2% among the network’s
core female 18-49 demographic.

The second seasons of Kourtney & Kim Take New
York, which follows the trials of two famed Kardashian
sisters living in the Big Apple, and After Lately — a
behind-the-scenes mocku-series based on E!’s Chelsea
Lately late-night series — will premiere Nov. 27 as
part of the network’s “Go Big and Stay Home!” original
series premiere programming stunt.

The next step for E! will be scripted fare. E! will initially
develop one or two light, one-hour dramas, and
may develop half-hour comedies in the near future.

—R. Thomas Umstead

Dish Seeks Supremes Call
On STELA HD Mandate


WASHINGTON — Dish Network has asked the Supreme
Court to rule on what First Amendment test should
apply to its Congressional mandate to carry noncommercial
stations in HD in advance of other stations.
It also wants to know, generally, what standard for
First Amendment scrutiny should apply across various
media.

At issue, if the court takes the case, could be
the entire government must-carry regime since
Dish is challenging the different treatment of
cable, satellite and traditional media.

Dish has filed a petition asking the High Court to review
a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision last
February upholding a district court’s denial of Dish’s
request for a preliminary injunction against implementing
the noncom HD mandate on Dish in the Satellite
Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA).

To abide by the law, Dish was required to strike
deals with noncom stations for HD carriage or be
subject to an early deadline for an HD carriage mandate
that kicks in more generally in 2013.

Dish wants an answer on whether Congress
can require a private party — Dish — to “grant
preferential treatment to specifi ed speakers —
noncom stations. Dish argues that the government
is favoring one type of speech over another.

Barton, Markey Are Seeking
Data-Retention Info From Facebook

WASHINGTON — The co-chairs of the House privacy
caucus are concerned about Facebook’s online
data collection.

Reps. Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Ed Markey (DMass.),
joined by other members of the caucus,
have sent a letter to the social network, prompted
by a Wall Street Journal story that a user’s request
for all the data Facebook had collected about him
was answered with a 1,200-page fi le that included
chat conversations and IP addresses.

In the letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg,
they seek answers to questions about Facebook’s
data-retention practices, including all the personally
identifiable info it collects, how it collects it, how it
stores it and whether it deletes it upon request.

The legislators were concerned that the 1,200
page log included information about people he had
“defriended” and other actions he had taken to delete
information that Facebook apparently still retained.