• CBS just renewed Dave Price weatherman gig on The Early Show, and now might be lookin to him for replace Bob Barker on The Price Is Right. Hopefully there’s room in the budget, since it’s rumored Les Moonves had to pay Barker to retire and get him out of his contract, which required the show go dark for a year after his departure. [P6]
• With no Kitson or D&G at rehab, what’s Nicole Richie to do but check out for the day and get a Centurion card workout? [Scoop]
• The Mississippi news producer who booked Borat for an on-air segment is regretting not using a news professional’s first line of defense: Google. [Fox 411]
• Jay Leno will leave the Oscar hosting duties to the lesbian. [Planet Gossip]
• Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick are teaming up for a new sitcom loosely based on their lives: two best friends, both writers, one gay, one straight. And their hot young assistants. Oh, the power to produce a show based on the life you wish you had. [THR]
• When young Hollywood and young socialites pair up, they can’t get past the doorman. [P6]
We’ve been dipping our aching feet into the weatherman scene lately. And today, while the sun may be shining bright outside, things are getting gloomy within the confines of, well, this post.
Last we relayed, WABC 7 weatherman Sam Champion could allegedly be seen hand-in-hand (at church, no less) with Sean Bell, who may or may not be an online escort available on Manhunt.net. (Sam and Sean’s attorney, meanwhile, argues to us that Bell is not for sale on Manhunt.) We’ll get to the latest details on that sordid relationship in a moment, but first let’s use Sam Champion as a jumping off point to get to some media news you might actually be interested in.
With Al Roker standing firm at NBC’s Today, we’ve only got the weather crew at ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS’s The Early Show to toy with. So, why don’t we?
We’re hearing that The Early Show’s professional map pointer (since July ‘03) Dave Price, who holds down the local and national gig, is making an exit from Les Moonves‘ house and heading over to GMA. Les, try as he might to hang on to Price, is said to be fighting a losing battle; Price has nearly signed with GMA.
So where does the blonde-locked Sam Champion fall into this? We’re told he was his own biggest lobbiest for the Good Morning America job, even taking to Larry King’s airwaves to make his cause. But Mr. Champion’s, ahem, “‘lifestyle’ is too apparent on television and won’t carry well on national TV to homes across America,” says our tattler.
Meanwhile, over in the blissful gayborhood that Sam and Sean Bell live in, we hear from another well-placed source that New York’s most loved weather fella is getting Kevin Federlined. Those details, after the jump.
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