FCC Votes to Ease Ownership Restrictions

Dylan out of "Practice: There will be a major cast shake-up on ABC's Emmy-winning drama series "The Practice" next season. Gone from the regular cast will be Dylan McDermott, Kelli Williams, Lisa Gray Hamilton, Lara Flynn Boyle, Marla Sokoloff and Chyler Leigh.

The reason? Money. When it unexpectedly renewed the series for next season, ABC cut the price it was willing to pay per episode to approximately $3.5 million, a drop of almost 50%. 20th Century Fox and producer/creator/writer David E. Kelley must now cut production costs. The fastest way to do this is by changing the cast.

"Oprah" agrees to talk more: Oprah Winfrey has agreed to keep her daytime talk show going through at least 2008. Under the terms of her new contract, the queen of daytime talk will provide 145 original episodes in the 2003-2004 season and then 130 original episodes through 2008.

Television Web site of the week: The 2003 College Baseball World Series is almost here. My alma mater, Cal State Fullerton, is among several schools hosting a "super regional" playoff this weekend. The winners of these best of three series advances to Omaha, Nebraska, home of the College World Series. Both ESPN and ESPN 2 are providing regional coverage of the playoffs. For more information, please see http://espn.go.com/ncaa/s/cwstvprotected...

Final thoughts: Do you have a television related Web site that you'd like me to review? Do you have a television trivia question that you'd like me to answer? If so, I'd love to hear from you at ckingston@aol.com Until next week, happy viewing!

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