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Television news briefs

Cowell Brings “Million Dollar Idea’ to ABC

“American Idol” judge Simon Cowell will go behind the camera for a new series that searches for a “Million Dollar Idea.”

ABC has ordered nine episodes of the unscripted show, which will give aspiring entrepreneurs a shot at $1 million to launch a new business or product. Contestants will have to go through an audition process and pitch their ideas to a panel of business experts, dubbed “The Millionaires,” to make the final round.

“Right now, someone in America may be sitting on the best new idea in the world,” says Cowell, who will executive produce but won’t appear on camera. “This show gives everyone the chance to fulfill that dream. I have no idea who or what is going to turn up, and that is the fun of this new series.”

Cowell conceived the show with British telecommunications tycoon Peter Jones – who was a judge on “Dragons’ Den,” a BBC series with a similar premise and may appear on “Million Dollar Idea” as well. After a round of open auditions, contestants will compete for nine spots in the finals. The finalists will each get $50,000 in seed money to develop their ideas.

While the contestants work on their inventions, the judges will be watching over them, picking three people to compete in a live finale. The audience will then determine the winner of the $1 million prize, which includes cash, business support and physical resources to get the product or service to the marketplace.

FremantleMedia, which produces “American Idol,” will produce the show. Cecile Frot-Coutaz and Nigel Hall will executive produce with Cowell.

Cable’s USA Network is also producing an inventors’ reality show called “Made in the USA,” in which contestants vie to have their product sold on the Home Shopping Network, is set to premiere later this year.

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‘Monk’ premiere cleans up in ratings

The strong summer for original cable series continued last week as the USA Network series “Monk” set viewership records.

Nearly 6.4 million viewers tuned into the show’s fourth-season premiere on Friday, making it the most-watched cable program of the week by a wide margin. It’s also the biggest audience ever for the show – something few series, cable or broadcast, accomplish in their fourth years.

The episode, which featured Jason Alexander (“Seinfeld,” “Listen Up”) as a rival detective who’s as slovenly as Monk (Tony Shalhoub) is obsessively clean, also beat nearly all of its broadcast competition Friday. Only two shows that aired during prime time that night, ABC’s “20/20” and NBC’s “Dateline,” drew more viewers.

“Monk” also grabbed the top spot on cable for the week in two important demographic groups: adults 18-49 (2.4 rating) and adults 25-54 (3.0 rating). The 25-54 rating was the best performance by an original series on basic cable this year.

The premiere ratings for “Monk” extend a string of strong performances by series on ad-supported cable this summer. USA’s “The 4400” debuted to 5.3 million viewers in June and is averaging about 4 million per week. TNT’s crime drama “The Closer” drew more than 5 million viewers in each of its first three episodes (before taking a hit on the July 4 holiday), and the network’s “Into the West” has also drawn solid numbers.

Staples like MTV’s “The Real World” and specials like the BET Awards, which brought in more than 6.5 million people on June 28, have also made an impact on the ratings.

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“COOTER’ URGES “HAZZARD’ FANS TO BOYCOTT FILM

Ben Jones, former congressman and former “Cooter,” hasn’t seen Warner Bros.’ big screen adaptation of “The Dukes of Hazzard,” but he knows enough to be offended.

Jones, who served on the original “Hazzard” television show as Cooter Davenport before serving the good people of Georgia, has posted an open letter on his personal Web site (CootersPlace.com, as if you couldn’t guess) urging fans to stay away from the film unless the studio makes a last-second decision to clean it up.

“Like our fans, those of us who worked on the show have a special affection for it,” Jones writes. “For over 25 years we have cared about it, nourished it, and fought for it. And it seems to me that it is time for us to have our voices heard again. From all I have seen and heard, the “Dukes’ movie is a sleazy insult to all of us who have cared about the “Dukes of Hazzard” for so long.”

Jones claims to have read the script and talked to people who worked on the set of the film, which stars Seann William Scott, Johnny Knoxville, Jessica Simpson and Burt Reynolds. The part of Cooter Davenport is being played by David Koechner.

“Sure it bothers me that they wanted nothing to do with the cast of our show, but what bothers me much more is the profanity laced script with blatant sexual situations that mocks the good clean family values of our series,” he declares. “Now, anybody who knows me knows that I’m not a prude. But this kind of toilet humor has no place in Hazzard County. Rather than honoring our legendary show, they have chosen to degrade it.”

“The Dukes of Hazzard” opens on Aug. 5.

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Cook all that for ‘Las Vegas’

Rachael Leigh Cook has finally found a home – at least temporarily – on network television.

The “She’s All That” star, whose luck with network-TV projects has been less than stellar in recent years, will have a recurring part on NBC’s “Las Vegas” this season. She’ll play a real-estate agent who becomes a potential love interest for Danny McCoy (Josh Duhamel).

“Rachael’s screen presence and natural appeal makes for an exciting match with Josh’s character of Danny,” says “Vegas” creator Gary Scott Thompson. “Her film work has always impressed me, and we can’t wait to begin filming her first scenes with our great cast of regulars.”

Cook is the second well-known actress to join “Las Vegas” for the coming season, the show’s third. Last week, NBC announced that Lara Flynn Boyle (“The Practice”) will be a regular, playing the new owner of the Montecito Hotel and Casino.

Cook’s episodes are scheduled to run early in the season. What her character’s presence means for the on-and-off relationship between Danny and his longtime friend and co-worker, Mary Connell (Nikki Cox), is being kept quiet for now.

In addition to “She’s All That,” Cook has starred in “Josie and the Pussycats” and is part of the large cast of TNT’s “Into the West.”