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ABC snatches country music awards

ABC will be going a little bit country starting in 2006.

The network has signed a six-year contract with the Country Music Association to broadcast the CMA Awards, annually one of the top-rated awards shows on television, beginning in 2006. The awards will move over from CBS, their home for more than 30 years.

As part of the deal, ABC will air a special this summer titled “CMA Music Festival: Country Music’s Biggest Party.” The two-hour show, which will be taped during the huge annual festival in June, is scheduled to air Aug. 2.

“Country music is America’s music, and its value and contribution is undeniable,” says Stephen McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment. “… We’re committed to making the CMA Awards a bigger television event than it has ever been before, and we’re truly grateful to the organization for coming on board and giving us that opportunity. We’re thrilled to be able to begin this relationship in the awards’ historic 40th year.”

The CMA Awards are considered the top prizes in the country-music industry, and the awards show is typically one of the highest-rated specials of the TV season. The most recent awards show, which aired in November, drew close to 18.5 million viewers for CBS – more than the most recent Golden Globe and Emmy ceremonies and nearly as many as the Grammys (18.8 million).

Separate from the CMA deal, ABC has booked country star and new husband of Renee Zellweger Kenny Chesney for a concert special to air in November.

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Jennings jacked in ‘Jeopardy!’ joust

After winning 74 straight “Jeopardy!” games and becoming a household name last year, Ken Jennings is now 0 for his last 2 on the show.

The man who until Wednesday was the winningest game-show contestant in history ceded that crown to Brad Rutter, a 27-year-old Pennsylvanian who defeated Jennings and Jerome Vered in the “Jeopardy!” Ultimate Tournament of Champions. For his efforts, Rutter walks away with $2 million.

That sum, added to the more than $1.2 million he won in previous appearances on the show, makes Rutter the all-time game-show money leader. Jennings, who got $500,000 for his second-place finish on Wednesday’s show, has now won just over $3 million. Third-place finisher Jerome Vered received $250,000.

“It’s an honor and a privilege to have won “Jeopardy!’s’ Ultimate Tournament of Champions,” Rutter says. “Meeting and playing against the biggest legends in “Jeopardy!’ history has been more of a thrill than I can describe.”

Rutter, a former record store clerk who now hosts a local game show in Pennsylvania, and Vered, a writer from Los Angeles, played their way into the finals of the tournament; Jennings, based on his record-setting run, was given a bye to the last round. The trio faced off in a series of three games, with their cumulative total deciding the winner.

Rutter led at the end of each day and cemented his victory by correctly responding to the Final Jeopardy clue in the category “20th Century Americans.” The answer provided was: “These names of 2 original Mercury astronauts, who orbited Earth in May 1962 & May 1963, are also occupations,” and the correct question was “Who are Malcolm Scott Carpenter & Leroy Gordon Cooper?”

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‘That ’70s show’ star takes hit of oxygen

Laura Prepon, who plays tough girl Donna on “That ’70s Show,” has signed on to play a different sort of girl in a project for Oxygen.

Prepon will star in the cable network’s original movie “Romancing the Bride,” a romantic comedy scheduled to debut in the fall. Mixing modern-day “bridezilla” stories with the adventure of the movie the title references, “Romancing the Stone,” the movie will tell the story of a bride-to-be named Melissa whose meticulous wedding plans go up in smoke.

“Laura Prepon is a perfect addition to Oxygen’s roster of young Hollywood talent,” says Debby Beece, head of programming at the network. “Oxygen viewers are in for the ride of their lives as Melissa invokes a whole lot of comedy from a wedding day gone bad.”

“Romancing the Bride” begins with Melissa waking up on the morning before her extravagant wedding to discover that the night before, she somehow got hitched to a guy named Carlos (Matt Cedeno, “Days of Our Lives”). The couple then sets off on a 24-hour quest to figure out what happened and have the marriage annulled.

Of course, along the way Melissa and Carlos will start to wonder if their nuptials were such a bad thing after all.

Kris Isacsson (“Down to You,” Oxygen’s “Tempting Adam”) will direct the movie and co-wrote the script with Kat Likkel and John Hoberg (“Hope & Faith”). Production is scheduled to begin next month in Acapulco.