Abc

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - The Penn State coaching staff is trying to make the battle for the No. 1 quarterback as fair as possible, even deciding to go in alphabetical order on the opening day of preseason practice to see who would work with the first string. The honor went to Rob Bolden over Matt McGloin. "B comes before M," quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno said Tuesday. "So there's no way anyone can read anything into it. " With preseason near its halfway point, there is no way - at least publicly - to tell who has the advantage: Bolden, the sophomore who started the first seven games last season before suffering a concussion and seeing his playing time severely cut, or McGloin, a junior who took nearly all the snaps in the final six contests.

Elmer W. Lower, 98, who as president of ABC News in the 1960s and early '70s greatly expanded its coverage, making it more competitive with powerhouses CBS and NBC, died Tuesday in Vero Beach, Fla. When Mr. Lower, a former executive at CBS and NBC, took over ABC's news division in 1963, it had a staff of about 250. By 1974, when he stepped down as president, the number had tripled, and the "Almost Broadcasting Company," as he said some people liked...

It was a marriage made not in heaven, but in Hollywood. Three women. No man. The baby, State of Georgia, arrives Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. on ABC Family. It's a broad sitcom with a modicum of fun, written by big-time chick-lit author, and Philadelphian, Jennifer Weiner. She has sold 11 million books in 36 countries, but she has never made a TV show. State of Georgia stars been-on-TV-since-she-was-a-baby Raven-Symone as Georgia and the well-traveled but still somewhat obscure Majandra Delfino, whom TV heads may best remember as the snarky Maria DeLuca, human girlfriend of an alien, on Roswell more than 10 years ago. Delfino has never done a traditional sitcom before, and she's surprisingly good.

LOS ANGELES - Five years after Katie Couric tried her hand at anchoring "CBS Evening News," the popular news personality is moving back to her comfort zone: daytime TV. Couric and the Walt Disney Co.-owned ABC television network announced a comprehensive deal yesterday that includes a high-profile role for Couric within the ABC News division and, beginning next year, the launch of a syndicated daytime talk show. Couric will produce the talk show along with her former "Today" show executive producer, former NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker.

Katie Couric will be getting a 3 p.m. weekday talk show on big-city ABC stations in September 2012, and she will join ABC News this summer, in a deal announced by Disney/ABC Monday. Couric, 54, will appear on all ABC News programs and platforms, the company said, and will "anchor specials, contribute interviews, [and] participate in special events coverage. " Diane Sawyer will remain as anchor of the flagship ABC World News . Disney will syndicate Couric's talk show, executive-produced by former NBC boss and longtime Couric crony Jeff Zucker, which means it would be sold around the country to station groups and local independent stations, which could air it whenever they want.

ABC WILL BE looking for a few more good men this fall. And to make sure they're not scared away by all the shows aimed at "affluent women" - a demo that ABC already overdelivers to advertisers, according to programming chief Paul Lee, who hopes to continue doing just that - it's making sure the guys won't have to stop and ask for directions. So on Tuesdays between 8 and 9, where the network that reinvigorated Wednesdays with "Modern Family" and "The Middle" is launching a "family comedy" block - two new sitcoms with "Man" in the title.

May is the month when hope springs eternal for broadcast TV. Following a season when almost nothing new bore fruit for ABC, the network announced Tuesday afternoon an ambitious palette of freshman series for 2011-12. Seven shows will join the fall lineup, including a sitcom with Tim Allen   and a glamorous remake of that '70s sensation, Charlie's Angels . ABC has six more series in the wings for midseason, including an international thriller starring Ashley Judd and a catty soap set in Dallas with Leslie Bibb, Kristin Chenoweth, and Annie Potts.

Seeking to expand the prime-time audience for the Big Four networks and compete with fast-rising Netflix, Comcast Corp. announced Wednesday that it would have most prime-time shows from ABC, Fox, CBS, and NBC available on its On Demand service the morning after they air. The expanded offerings for cable-TV watchers begin Thursday. Up to now, Comcast offered only prime-time broadcast-network programming from CBS and its own NBC. Some megahits - among them American Idol , Modern Family , and Dancing With the Stars - will not be part of the new On Demand selection, although Comcast says 32 of the top 50 prime-time shows will be. The expanded On Demand offerings reflect the reality that more people are watching "time-shifted" TV, along with the fact that Comcast is seeking to compete more vigorously with Netflix, the online streaming service with a deep library of older prime-time shows.

After weeks of rumors, ABC announced Thursday that it was canceling the tent poles of its daytime schedule, All My Children and One Life to Live . Episodes of AMC will air until September, OLTL until January. Both serials were set in fictional Philadelphia suburbs, All My Children in Pine Valley (a stand-in for Bryn Mawr) and One Life to Live in Llanview (Ardmore). Both were created by soap-opera doyenne and Main Line resident Agnes Nixon.