This Just In: HBO Orders New Seasons of The Newsroom and True Blood
News moves quickly, but it’s got nothing on HBO: The cable network renewed The Newsroom Monday after airing only two episodes of the show’s initial season.
Additionally, the supernatural soap opera True Blood also has been renewed for a sixth season.
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The Newsroom, an hour-long chronicle of a cable news show in transition, stars Jeff Daniels as the show’s acerbic host and Emily Mortimer as his former girlfriend and current lead producer. Creator Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing) uses actual news events of the recent past, such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, as fodder for Newsroom’s show-within-a-show, News Night.
HBO’s speedy decision makes sense in light of recent ratings: Newsroom’s premiere drew in 2.1 million total viewers, which was just short of Game of Thrones’ ratings for its Season 1 debut but a large improvement on True Blood’s initial outing (1.4 mil) in 2008.
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The upcoming season of True Blood will be its first without creator Alan Ball as showrunner. Ball, who’s working on new shows for Cinemax and HBO, will remain an executive producer on the show.
Blood‘s Season 5 premiere grabbed 6.3 million viewers across both of its broadcasts, almost reaching the numbers it hit with the previous season’s debut.
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