News Brief

San Diego Union Tribune: Viewers took extreme measures to avoid TV's snoozers and losers during the strike.

NBA.com: FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS' quarterback Zach Gilford on his “Pip 33″ tattoo on the red carpet prior to the start of the NBC All-Star game on Sunday night: "I was a dumb, 13-year old kid. My best friend and I were tattooing each other and it was the year Jordan retired and Pip was carrying the team on his back. And now I'll have it for the rest of my life. I've learned my tattoo lesson."

Variety: Weekend Box Office results. Definitely, Maybe featuring former AS THE WORLD TURNS star Annie Parisse debuted at #5.

PGP Blog: In honor of Presidents' Day, a look at the intersection of First Ladies and AS THE WORLD TURNS.

Columbus Dispatch: Daytime dramas can use a lift, having seen almost a 50 percent erosion of their audience during the past decade. How do networks hope to draw viewers who have strayed from daytime serials? Entice them with actors they've loved but lost.

PR Leap: The New York International Independent Film and Video Festival (NYIIFVF) has announced the line up of films, parties, and red carpet premieres. The eight-day extravaganza will run from February 28 - March 6 2008, all over Manhattan and will showcase a record number of international features, shorts, documentaries and animations from all over the globe. One soap related film of note:
LIME SALTED LOVE Starring Kristanna Loken (AS THE WORLD TURNS, THE L WORD) and Jason Brooks (DAYS OF OUR LIVES). This minimalist, surreal and visual examination of abandonment, guilt, abuse and psychic pain is set in the hipster enclaves of Los Angeles. The film, told in rippling flashbacks from its four main characters, flows out of the eyes of the institutionally confined, *Directed by Danielle Agnello and Joe Halli, 86 min. Art house, U.S.

TV Squad: his season, LAW & ORDER was looking for a way to get some new energy and interest in the long-running NBC Emmy-winning series, so on the judicial end of the show, they promoted Sam Waterson's Jack McCoy to DA and cast Linus Roache as Assistant District Attorney Michael Cutter. His dad is William Roache, star of CORONATION STREET, the longest-running soap opera in Britain; he's been on the show since 1960! Linus spoke of his father in a 1998 interview, saying, "He's like a national institution. He's the sole member left in the original cast. I played his son on the show for a while when I was a kid. I didn't like the attention. I remember going with him to some event and it was just crazy; it was like the Beatles had arrived or something, just ridiculous. I got quite upset by it."

Citizen (South Africa): Popular ISIDINGO actress Ashley Callie will be remembered in a memorial service at the Johannesburg Country Club on Thursday.

Building: The BBC is planning to relocate the EASTENDERS set because poor renovations to the original will not stand up to the scrutiny of high definition television.

Metro: EMMERDALE actress Charlotte Bellamy has apparently spoken about the cot death storyline about to hit the soap, admitting the scenes were tough to shoot. The 34-year-old plays Laurel Thomas, who is left devastated when her six-month-old son Daniel dies of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.