TV News: HBO Renews ‘The Newsroom,’ ‘True Blood’

CHICAGO – HBO just announced that they have renewed “True Blood” for a sixth season and “The Newsroom” for a second season. Both shows are currently airing on HBO on Sunday nights.

Numbers are not yet available for last night’s episodes but “The Newsroom” didn’t exactly set the ratings on fire for its premiere, which notched just over 2 million viewers total and a 1.0 in the 18-49 rating, compared to the night-winning 2.6 rating for “True Blood” and over twice as many total viewers (4.7 million). HBO clearly has confidence that “The Newsroom” will find more of an audience and that “True Blood” will continue its remarkable ratings streak.

The official log lines, courtesy of HBO:

“The Newsroom”

“This series centers on a cable news anchor (Jeff Daniels), his new executive producer (Emily Mortimer), his newsroom staff (John Gallagher, Jr., Alison Pill, Thomas Sadoski, Dev Patel, Olivia Munn) and their boss (Sam Waterston). Together they set out on a patriotic and quixotic mission to do the news well in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles and their own personal relationships.”

“True Blood”

“Based on the popular Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris, this Emmy®-nominated hit drama series was created by Alan Ball, creator of HBO’s Emmy®-winning series “Six Feet Under.” The show follows waitress and part-faerie Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), who can hear people’s thoughts, vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and vampire Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgård).”

[10]	By BRIAN TALLERICO [11] Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com [10]