Direct TV Dish

Outdoor Channel signed popular outdoor TV host and fishing expert Bill Dance for a new series entitled Bill Dance Saltwater. Launching in Outdoor Channel’s popular “Friday Night Fishing” block on January 2, 2009, Bill Dance Saltwater follows Dance as he unveils a plethora of easily accessible saltwater fishing destinations right here in North America.

“We aim to give the viewers the information and confidence to say, ‘Hey, I can do that too,’” said Dance. “This series will introduce anglers to amazing fishing destinations right in their own backyards, and we will also prepare them with the background they need to really have an excellent fishing experience.”

SPEED, a sports cable television networks has integrated Neural-THX Surround professional products for their HD programming schedule covering NASCAR, Grand Am, IndyCar and more. A market leader in developing advanced audio and surround sound technologies, Neural Audio Corporation has announced this on Tuesday. The Neural-THX Surround MultiMerge and Neural-THX UpMix professional products allow broadcasters and networks to manage their stereo and surround sound content so that the viewer at home receives a constant, natural and enveloping surround sound experience.Bruce Shapiro, coordinating technical producer for SPEED said “Neural-THX Surround has significantly helped bring SPEED into the HD and 5.1 world with tremendous ease and simplicity, The MultiMerge and UpMix units keep us covered across a variety of HD efforts.”

Animal Planet will premiere seven-part series WHALE WARS this November. Animal Planet’s series draws attention to this global conservation issue that has caused friction between several nations over the practice of whaling in oceanic territories. This year’s campaign was particularly eventful with multiple engagements, capsizing, possible hostage-taking and alleged shooting, and Animal Planet crews were onboard to document it as it unfolded.

ESPN Deportes is offering the most complete Spanish-language All-Star coverage, with all events presented live from Yankee Stadium in New York, Sunday, July 13 through Tuesday, July 15. The television network’s All-Star coverage will begin with the 2008 Futures Game Sunday, July 13 at 3 p.m. ESPN Deportes‘ commentator team features Ernesto Jerez, former major leaguer Candy Maldonado and Carolina Guillen. Guillen will provide in-game interviews from the World Team dugout.

Animal Planet and Comcast Invite South Bay Area Residents and Their Pets to Join in Free Fun When Animal Planet Expo Rolls Into Town Saturday July 26 and Sunday July 27 at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. ANIMAL PLANET EXPO, now in its 11th year, to celebrate and support the connection between people and animals. The award winning traveling summer tour has entertained, educated and inspired over one million people; stopping in cities all across the country and this year is no different! Animal Planet and Comcast, plus national sponsors the makers of Fresh Step(R) litter and Purina(R) and local sponsors Saturn, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and the San Jose Earthquakes invite everyone in the family, including the family pet, to explore the wonder of wildlife, celebrate the important role animals play on this planet and to enjoy the experience that is ANIMAL PLANET EXPO. ANIMAL PLANET EXPO comes to San Jose on Saturday July 26 and Sunday July 27, from 10 AM to 4 PM at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds.

NBC Universal will present an unprecedented 3,600 hours of Beijing Olympic Games coverage, the most ambitious single media project in history. NBCU’s unprecedented Olympics coverage features the most live coverage in the United States (75 percent in all), across the most platforms, of any Summer Olympics in history when the Games of the XXIX Olympiad commence on Aug. 8. The announcement was made today by Dick Ebersol, Chairman, NBC Universal Sports & Olympics and Executive Producer of NBCU’s Olympic coverage. The 3,600 total hours of coverage on seven NBC Universal networks: NBC, USA, MSNBC, CNBC, Oxygen, Telemundo and Universal HD, as well as NBCOlympics.com, is 1,000 hours more than the combined coverage for every televised Summer Olympics in U.S. history (Rome 1960 - Athens 2004, 2,562 hours). NBCOlympics.com will feature approximately 2,200 total hours of live streaming Olympic broadband video coverage, the first live online Olympic coverage in the United States.

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.