There's good news and bad news regarding the Glenn Close legal drama 'Damages.' The bad news is that FX has real concerns about picking up the show for another season because of the cost. The good news is that Sony has turned to DirecTV to co-broadcast 'Damages.'

If this sounds like a paradigm you've heard before, you have. Currently, DirecTV shares the broadcast rights to 'Friday Night Lights' with NBC. That's how the Peabody-award winning program has remained on the air.

The fourth season of 'Friday Night Lights' has already run on DirecTV's Channel 101 -- a fantastic season by the way -- and NBC will give present the same episodes again for a much larger audience when the show premieres on May 7. (Of course, NBC could have chosen a night other than Friday -- one of the least watched nights of the week -- but there are fans out there waiting for this quality TV show.)

If you like sports talk in the afternoon and get bored with the countless reruns of breaking news on ESPN's myriad channels, here's some good news. Dan Patrick is back on the air. In daytime, that is, and not on the worldwide leader in sports. Dan Patrick's radio show began simulcasting on DirecTV this week, bringing the entire DP team and their studio into view.

Broadcasting a radio show on TV is not new, of course. Don Imus did it for years on MSNBC until he put his foot so far in his mouth that he was kicked off the network. And Mike Francesca has a daily radio talk show airing on the Yes network. The idea of watching someone with a microphone in his face and earphones on is not radical.

Julia told everyone about the new VH1 series The Department of Acceptable Media starring Jack Black back in November, and now there's a little more information available, such as when the heck the show will debut (March 23). Oh yeah, and it's not called The Department of Acceptable Media, anymore, it's simply called Acceptable TV.

The new series will feature several three-minute shorts in one episode, some created by regular folks like you and me, and some created by Jack Black and pals. Viewers will vote on which shows to dump and which ones to keep. If that sounds an awful lot like the Channel 101 site, that might be because Channel 101 helped create the series.

Shorts that are too hot for TV will made available online, and creators will also get a share of the ad revenue everytime their short is viewed online. You can watch some hysterical promos for the new series here.

[via Lost Remote]

An animated Web series created for Channel 101 called "House of Cosbys" has had Bill Cosby and his lawyers fuming for some time now. The series, which, personally, I never found all that amusing, is about a man who creates several clones of the comedian, each one becoming a bit more twisted than the last. When the site received the first cease and desist, they took the show down. Upon consideration, however, they decided the parody had a right to exist and put it back up. That's when another letter was sent to their hosting service, who told Channel 101 to take the show down (again).

What Cosby and his lawyers didn't take into consideration is that this is the internet, and it's next to impossible to contain something once folks have caught wind of it. Several mirror sites now host the series, including Waxy.org, which was also hit with a cease and desist recently. Waxy has refused to remove the show, and has began collecting examples of popular shows that have also parodied Cosby such as SNL, The Simpsons, and Family Guy, none of which have ever faced any kind of legal action from Cosby.

Special note: Speaking of Family Guy, Mike Henry and Patrick Henry, two writers for the show, also created a series for Channel 101 called "Kicked in the Nuts" which was referenced in the episode "The Cleavland-Loretta Quagmire." It was by far the most esoteric reference ever on the show. And yes, Family Guy fans, I know the show isn't a food.

[via Boing Boing]