E!
Encyclopedia
E! Entertainment Television is an American basic cable and satellite television
Direct broadcast satellite
Direct broadcast satellite is a term used to refer to satellite television broadcasts intended for home reception.A designation broader than DBS would be direct-to-home signals, or DTH. This has initially distinguished the transmissions directly intended for home viewers from cable television...

 network, owned by NBCUniversal. It features entertainment-related programming, reality television
Reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...

, feature films and occasionally series and specials unrelated to the entertainment industry.

E! has an audience reach of 88 million cable and satellite viewers in the U.S. and 600 million homes internationally.

History

E! Entertainment Television was founded by Larry Namer
Larry Namer
Larry Namer is an entertainment and media entrepreneur who, along with Alan Mruvka, founded E! Entertainment Television, a company now valued at over $3.5 billion, and Movies USA Magazine.-Biography:...

 and Alan Mruvka
Alan Mruvka
Alan Mruvka is an American entertainment and media entrepreneur, film producer and screenwriter. He created and co-founded Movietime Channel, which later became E! Entertainment television....

.

The network launched on July 31, 1987 as Movietime, a service that aired movie trailers, entertainment news, event and awards coverage, and interviews as an early example of a national barker channel
Barker channel
A barker channel is a form of electronic media known as digital signage. It is a TV channel that is entirely composed of sales promotion and advertising, usually marketing various features of the service carrying the channel...

. Early Movietime hosts included Greg Kinnear
Greg Kinnear
Gregory "Greg" Kinnear is an American actor and television personality who first rose to stardom in 1991. He has appeared in more than 20 motion pictures, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in As Good as It Gets.-Early life:Kinnear was born in Logansport, Indiana, the son of...

, Paula Abdul
Paula Abdul
Paula Julie Abdul is an American singer-songwriter, dancer, choreographer, actress and television personality.In the 1980s, Abdul rose from cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers to highly sought-after choreographer at the height of the music video era before scoring a string of pop music-R&B hits...

, Katie Wagner
Katie Wagner
Katharine "Katie" Wagner is a television personality and Hollywood reporter. She was named after actress and family friend Katharine Hepburn. Her parents are actress Marion Marshall and veteran actor Robert Wagner...

, Julie Moran
Julie Moran
Julie Moran , America's Junior Miss 1980, was a correspondent on the entertainment news show Entertainment Tonight from 1994–2001. Before joining ET, she co-hosted NBA Inside Stuff with Ahmad Rashad and later replaced Frank Gifford as host of ABC's Wide World of Sports...

, Suzanne Kay (daughter of Diahann Carroll), Mark DeCarlo
Mark DeCarlo
Mark DeCarlo is an American actor.DeCarlo is the voice of Hugh Neutron on the television show Jimmy Neutron. He hosted the Travel Channel's Taste of America with Mark DeCarlo for 2 seasons in 2004 and 2005, and is also known as the host of the early 1990s dating game show Studs...

, Sam Rubin and Richard Blade
Richard Blade
Richard Blade is a popular Los Angeles radio, television, and film personality from Torquay, England. He is best known for his radio programs that feature New Wave and Popular music from the 1980s...

. Three years later, in June 1990, Movietime was renamed E! Entertainment Television to emphasize its widening coverage of the celebrity-industrial complex
Celebrity-industrial complex
The celebrity-industrial complex is a social and economic construct which involves a symbiotic relationship between celebrities and business corporations...

, contemporary film, television and music, daily Hollywood gossip, and fashion.

Controlling ownership was originally held by a consortium
Consortium
A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal....

 of five cable companies (Comcast
Comcast
Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...

, Continental Cablevision, Cox Cable, TCI
Tele-Communications Inc.
Tele-Communications, Inc. or TCI was a cable television provider in the United States, for much of its history controlled by Bob Magness and John Malone....

, and Warner Cable), HBO/Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

, and various founding shareholders, with HBO directly programming and managing the network. In 1989, after Time-Life
Time-Life
Time–Life is a creator and direct marketer of books, music, video/DVD, and multimedia products. Its products are sold throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia through television, print, retail, the Internet, telemarketing, and direct sales....

 bought Warner Brothers to fend off a takeover bid by Paramount, the new Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...

 company held four of the eight major ownership positions and took over management control of Movietime and renamed the network E! Entertainment Television. In 1997, Comcast, one of the minority partners, teamed up with The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...

 to buy the channel after Time-Warner had exercised their put agreement. In November 2006, Comcast (which eventually had the largest ownership stake in most of the network through mergers of forerunners of TCI and Continental under various circumstances) acquired Disney's 39.5% share of E! for $1.23 billion to gain full ownership of the network as part of a broader programming carriage agreement between Disney/ABC and Comcast.

Comcast Entertainment Group, the company's television unit, became a division of NBCUniversal Television Group, after Comcast acquired a 51% majority stake in NBCUniversal in January 2011. E!'s only sister networks prior to the NBC Universal merger were Style Network
Style Network
The Style Network is an American cable television network based in Los Angeles.Owned by NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of General Electric and Comcast, its sister channels include E! Entertainment Television, USA Network, Syfy, G4, Golf Channel, and Versus, among others.-Network Overview:Style's...

 and G4
G4 (TV channel)
G4, also known as G4 TV, is an American cable- and satellite-television channel originally geared primarily toward young adult viewers, originally based on the world of video games...

, along with Comcast's sports networks Versus
Versus (TV channel)
Versus is a sports-oriented cable television channel in the United States. It was previously known as Outdoor Life Network and was launched on July 1, 1995, focusing on fishing, hunting, and other outdoor sports...

, Comcast SportsNet
Comcast SportsNet
Comcast SportsNet is a group of regional sports networks in the United States primarily owned by the Comcast cable television company....

 and Golf Channel. In the case of Versus, E! staff produced that network's Sports Soup
Sports Soup
Sports Soup was a weekly series airing in the U.S. on Versus. The show , hosted by Matt Iseman, satirizes recent events in sports and the stations that cover them in similar fashion to sister network E! Entertainment Television's series The Soup...

, while the Orlando-based Golf Channel featured no crossovers with E! at all due to incompatible audiences and operations. Versus and Golf Channel are now under the direct control of the NBC Sports
NBC Sports
NBC Sports is the sports division of the NBC television network. Formerly "a service of NBC News," it broadcasts a diverse array of programs, including the Olympic Games, the NFL, the NHL, MLS, Notre Dame football, the PGA Tour, the Triple Crown, and the French Open, among others...

 division and are no longer connected to their former sister networks beyond advertising and in-house operations.

News

E! is one of the only U.S. general-entertainment cable channels that broadcasts a daily news program; its flagship entertainment news program is E! News, which debuted on September 1, 1991. The weekday program (which also has an hour-long weekend edition) features stories and gossip about celebrities, and the film, music and television industry, and has been broadcast under various formats since its launch, even being aired live for a time in the mid-2000s. First hosted by Dagny Hultgreen, it has been hosted by Ryan Seacrest
Ryan Seacrest
Ryan John Seacrest is an American radio personality, television host, network producer and voice actor. He is the host of On Air with Ryan Seacrest, a nationally syndicated Top 40 radio show that airs on KIIS-FM in Los Angeles and throughout the United States and Canada on Premiere Radio Networks,...

 and Giuliana Rancic since 2006.

E! News was the only entertainment news show on the channel for much of its history, until 2006 when the channel launched The Daily 10, hosted by Sal Masekela
Sal Masekela
Selema Mabena "Sal" Masekela is an American television host, sports commentator, actor, and singer.-Biography:...

 and Catt Sadler
Catt Sadler
Catt Sadler is a television personality on E! Entertainment Television as a correspondent and host for E! News and formerly The Daily Ten. The Los Angeles Times named Catt Sadler one of the top 10 up-and-coming broadcasters in entertainment.Sadler first appeared in the movie Hoosiers at the age of...

 (Debbie Matenopoulos
Debbie Matenopoulos
Thespina "Debbie" Matenopoulos is an American television personality and actress.- Early life :Matenopoulos was born in Richmond, Virginia, of Greek ancestry. Her birth name is Despina Matenopoulos, named after her grandmother...

 also co-hosted from the show's inception until 2008); the series was cancelled in September 2010 after E! announced that the weekday editions of E! News would be expanded to one hour starting on October 25, 2010, and in the midst of controversy over a joke by Loveline
Loveline
Loveline is a syndicated radio call-in program in North America, offering medical and relationship advice to listeners, often with the assistance of guests, typically actors and musicians. Its flagship station is KROQ-FM in Los Angeles....

co-host Mike Catherwood
Michael Catherwood
Michael Dwight Catherwood , known by his radio name Psycho Mike, is an American radio personality. He is known primarily for his work at KROQ-FM on Kevin and Bean and most recently as the co-host of Loveline.-Kevin & Bean Show:...

, who filled in for Masekela on the show frequently during 2010, that openly gay singer and ex-American Idol
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...

contestant Adam Lambert
Adam Lambert
Adam Mitchel Lambert is an American singer, songwriter, and actor from San Diego, California. In May 2009, he finished as the runner-up on the eighth season of American Idol...

 would enjoy being in jail with all men, during a story on the September 17, 2010 edition of The Daily 10 on an altercation Lambert allegedly had with a paparazzi.

Outside of E! News telecasts, the channel runs an E! News-branded ticker displaying entertainment news headlines each half-hour during regular programming (except during airings of E! News and The Soup, and the channel's early morning infomercial block), which is updated daily; fast-breaking entertainment headlines (e.g., celebrity arrest or death) may also be displayed on a ticker, during any program when warranted.

Original series

E! is known for its live red carpet pre-shows for the industry's three prominent award shows, the Primetime Emmy Awards, the Golden Globe Awards and the Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

, famous for its fashion critiques by Joan Rivers
Joan Rivers
Joan Rivers is an American comedian, television personality and actress. She is known for her brash manner; her loud, raspy voice with a heavy New York accent; and her numerous cosmetic surgeries...

; Rivers has also hosted post-awards specials titled Fashion Police
Fashion Police
Fashion Police is an American television program airing on E! Entertainment Television. The program, which debuted on September 10, 2010, features co-hosts Joan Rivers, Giuliana Rancic, Kelly Osbourne and George Kotsiopoulos commenting on celebrity fashions...

, which became a regular weekly series in September 2010. The network also produces a decent amount of documentary and biographical series, most notably E! True Hollywood Story
E! True Hollywood Story
E! True Hollywood Story is an American documentary series on E! that deals with famous Hollywood celebrities, movies, TV shows and well-known public figures...

; many of E!'s original specials are entertainment-related ranging from light fare such as 25 Cutest Child Stars All Grown Up to serious fare such as 15 Most Unforgettable Hollwood Tragedies. It also produces specials centering on investigative and crime stories including E! Investigates, which features topical investigative reports on subjects ranging from child prostitution to teenage pregnancy.

In recent years, the network has become popular for its reality television programs. Its most popular series as of 2011 is Keeping Up with the Kardashians
Keeping Up with the Kardashians
Keeping Up with the Kardashians is an American reality television series that airs on E!. The series premiered in October 2007. It focuses on the personal and professional lives of the members of the Kardashian and Jenner family. There will be a 7th Season to premiere in 2012.As of September 2011,...

, which has spawned three spinoffs (Kourtney and Khloé Take Miami
Kourtney and Khloé Take Miami
Khloé and Malika Take Miami, , is an American reality/spin-off television series, produced by Ryan Seacrest, which debuted on E! on August 16, 2009....

, Kourtney and Kim Take New York
Kourtney and Kim Take New York
Kourtney and Kim Take New York is an American reality television series, produced by Ryan Seacrest, that debuted on E! in the United States and Canada on January 23, 2011...

, and Khloe and Lamar). Other reality programs that have aired on E! include The Anna Nicole Show
The Anna Nicole Show
The Anna Nicole Show is an American reality sitcom starring former model and Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith. The series debuted on August 4, 2002 on the E! entertainment television network and ran for two seasons.-Synopsis:...

, Sunset Tan
Sunset Tan
Sunset Tan was an American reality television program that aired on the E! cable television network. The series chronicles the lives of the managers and employees of a tanning salon in Los Angeles called Sunset Tan. Season Two finished September 28, 2008...

, Gastineau Girls, The Girls Next Door
The Girls Next Door
The Girls Next Door, also known as The Girls of the Playboy Mansion, is an American reality television series broadcast on the E! cable television network...

(which itself has spawned two spinoffs Holly's World
Holly's World
Holly's World, originally titled Planet Holly, is an American reality television series that debuted on E! on December 6, 2009. Initially a one-off special, success in the ratings led to E! ordering an eight-episode season that began airing on June 13, 2010.The show is the second spin-off to The...

and Kendra
Kendra (TV series)
Kendra is an American reality-based television series that debuted on E! on June 7, 2009. The program details model - and former girlfriend of Playboy owner Hugh Hefner - Kendra Wilkinson's life after moving out of the Playboy Mansion, including her engagement and marriage to football player Hank...

), The Spin Crowd
The Spin Crowd
The Spin Crowd is a reality TV show produced by Kim Kardashian that centers around six cast members who all work for a Hollywood public relations firm. The Spin Crowd originally aired in February as a half-hour special entitled SPINdustry. It premiered August 22, 2010 on the E! channel. The...

, Married to Rock
Married to Rock
Married to Rock is an American reality television series broadcast on the E! cable television network. The show is produced by Bunim-Murray Productions.-Synopsis:The series focuses on the lives of the spouses of four rock musicians...

, and most recently, Ice Loves Coco], and [Dirty Soap.

E! airs three comedy programs: the late night talk show Chelsea Lately
Chelsea Lately
Chelsea Lately is an American late night comedy talk show hosted by comedian Chelsea Handler on E!. The show debuted on July 16, 2007, and is produced by Handler's production company, Borderline Amazing Productions...

, hosted by comedienne Chelsea Handler
Chelsea Handler
Chelsea Joy Handler is an American stand-up comedian, humorist, television host, actress, model and best-selling author. She currently hosts a late-night talk show titled, Chelsea Lately on the E! Cable Television Network. In 2009 she won a Bravo A-List Award...

, its spinoff After Lately
After Lately
After Lately is an American reality-style sitcom that began airing on the E! network on March 6, 2011. The series goes behind-the-scenes of Chelsea Handler's late night talk show, Chelsea Lately...

, and The Soup
The Soup
The Soup is an E! Entertainment Television weekly series; it is a revamped version of Talk Soup that focuses on recaps of various pop culture and television show moments of the week...

(based on the popular 1991-2002 E! series Talk Soup
Talk Soup
Talk Soup was a television show produced for cable network E! that debuted on January 7, 1991, and aired until August 2002. Talk Soup aired selected clips of the previous day's daily talk shows—ranging from daytime entries like The Jerry Springer Show and to celebrity interview shows like The...

), featuring clips of the previous week's TV shows with humorous commentary delivered by the host, actor/comedian Joel McHale
Joel McHale
Joel Edward McHale is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, television producer, television personality, and voice artist. He is best known for hosting The Soup and for his role as Jeff Winger on Community....

.

Uncharacteristic for any television network, E! airs the full credits
Closing credits
Closing credits or end credits are added at the end of a motion picture, television program, or video game to list the cast and crew involved in the production. They usually appear as a list of names in small type, which either flip very quickly from page to page, or move smoothly across the...

 of the current program at the show's beginning rather than the end; some programs, most prominently E! News, air their copyright tags in a similar fashion, and many series often feature production company credits at the start of the final segment of a program. However, feature films airing on the channel display the credits at the traditional end of program placement.

Acquired series

Over the years, E! has occasionally run acquired programming including reruns of Alice
Alice (TV series)
Alice is an American sitcom television series that ran from August 31, 1976 to July 2, 1985 on CBS. The series was based on the 1974 film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. The show stars Linda Lavin in the title role, a widow who moves with her young son to start her life over again, and finds a job...

, Absolutely Fabulous
Absolutely Fabulous
Absolutely Fabulous, also known as Ab Fab, is a British sitcom created by Jennifer Saunders, based on an original idea by her and Dawn French, and written by Saunders, who plays the leading character. It also stars Joanna Lumley and Julia Sawalha, along with June Whitfield and Jane Horrocks...

, several 20/20 news programs from ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

, and edited 60-minute versions of Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...

, though fewer of these programs currently air. The only programming currently airing on E! that they do not produce are reruns of the former HBO series Sex and the City
Sex and the City
Sex and the City is an American television comedy-drama series created by Darren Star and produced by HBO. Broadcast from 1998 until 2004, the original run of the show had a total of ninety-four episodes...

and films under the banner "Movies We Love"; the latter was part of a since-abandoned initiative by the network to use films to increase their ratings.

E! HD

The network launched a high definition
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...

 simulcast on December 8, 2008, like the rest of E!'s sister lifestyle and sports networks owned by former parent Comcast Entertainment Group and subsequently the NBC cable networks, airing in the 1080i
1080i
1080i is the shorthand name for a high-definition television mode. The i means interlaced video; 1080i differs from 1080p, in which the p stands for progressive scan. The term 1080i assumes a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9, implying a frame size of 1920×1080 pixels...

 format. Currently filmed content and all of the network's post-2010 content, along with limited pre-2010 content are carried in the format, with HD programming airing in a letterbox
Letterbox
Letterboxing is the practice of transferring film shot in a widescreen aspect ratio to standard-width video formats while preserving the film's original aspect ratio. The resulting videographic image has mattes above and below it; these mattes are part of the image...

 format on the SD channel (films remain in 480i
480i
480i is the shorthand name for a video mode, namely the US NTSC television system or digital television systems with the same characteristics. The i, which is sometimes uppercase, stands for interlaced, the 480 for a vertical frame resolution of 480 lines containing picture information; while NTSC...

 due to contractual or technical reasons).

During E!'s run as a broadcast service in Canada, the E! Ontario version of the service until the December 2008 discontinuation of the E! broadcast television system was available in HD over Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...

-based CHCH-TV
CHCH-TV
CHCH-DT, channel 11, is a television station originating in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, with transmitters located throughout Ontario. CHCH currently operates as an independent station, having previously served as a CBC Television affiliate, and more recently as the flagship station of the...

 (channel 11) on their channel 18 digital signal.

E! Online

E! Online is the online arm of E!, featuring live updates on entertainment news stories; the website includes a online-only entertainment news bulletin titled E! News Now, which is updated each weekday. The website also provides live streaming video of major red carpet events including movie premieres and award shows such as the Academy Awards and the Emmys, along with some blogs involving shows such as The Soup. Columnists featured on the website include Kristin dos Santos (the "Watch with Kristin" television blog), Ted Casablanca
Ted Casablanca
Ted Casablanca is an American entertainment journalist for E! Online and has a column called The Awful Truth.-Career:...

 ("The Awful Truth" gossip blog) and Marc Malkin (writer of a eponymous gossip blog and host of a daily videoblog on the site).

See also

  • ReelzChannel (has same concept as original Movie Time)
  • E!, a defunct Canadian broadcast television system owned by Canwest previously called CH.
  • E! (Canadian TV channel)
    E! (Canadian TV channel)
    E! Entertainment Television is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel which is owned and operated by Bell Media. E! is devoted to entertainment programming including entertainment news, film, television, celebrities, and fashion...

    , the current-day sister network in Canada, the former Star! network, a division of Bell Media which is owned by BCE Inc.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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