TVSquad

While walking the streets of Manhattan, heading to the office early this morning, one of those giant open-air tour buses came flying by me as I crossed Sixth Avenue. Normally, since I see them everyday, I ignore them. But this one had a giant ad plastered across the side of it for Ed Begley Jr.'s green livin' reality show, and I couldn't help staring at it because it confused the hell outta me. Not because it's an inherently confusing ad, but because the fonts and text create an inherently confusing message.

Now, I'm no ad man, but am I the only one who sees the problem here?

Planet Green and Access Hollywood are rolling out the red, er, green carpet for Hollywood Green. The show, hosted by Access Hollywood and Today Show correspondent Maria Menounos will kick off tomorrow in a special timeslot at 6 p.m. The show will follow Menounos as she talks with her celebrity friends who are champions of environmentally-friendly living. The host will highlight green fashion trends, cover gala events, and put "fans and viewers in the know as to what she and the rest of Hollywood are doing to support the green movement."

Menounos is also a reporter for NBC Nightly News and can be seen in the summer comedy Tropic Thunder.

Planet Green is a property of Discovery Communications. It is a 24-hour eco-lifestyle network that focuses on conversation and meeting the challenge of protecting our earth.

Hollywood Green with Maria Menounos will air tomorrow at 6 p.m. on Planet Green then move to its regular time at 9 p.m. next week.

It's just good common sense. You get yourself a big time show (Entourage) on a big network (HBO) and then you jump on board with a huge star (Ed Begley Jr?). I'm sure it made more sense in the pitch meeting. Anyway, Entourage star Grenier has a new gig that will be airing on the soon to launch Planet Green channel.

His new show, Alter Eco, will follow his Green Team as they take on environmental projects around Los Angeles. The team includes Boise Thomas, model Angela Lindvall, and Darren Moore. Moore is listed in the linked article as a renovations expert, but I just think of him as the physicist from Twitch City, which is cool enough to get me to tune in at least once. Planet Green, which will also be the home of Begley Jr's Living With Ed, is set to launch on June 4th, with the 13 episode run of Alter Eco premiering June 9th.

This summer Discovery is launching a "green" television channel, called Planet Green. ABC newsman Bob Woodruff is slated to anchor an eco-friendly newscast for the new network. The newscast is described as "in-depth news for half an hour each week."

It'll be interesting to see what the story count is for this half hour of news. CBS Sunday Morning is something that I would consider to look "in-depth" at stories and it takes an hour-and-a-half to do that each week. The "green" newscast will focus on scientific analysis, as well as debates on issues. It's being produced by ABC News, where Woodruff is a correspondent.

This is a very different direction for Woodruff, who was briefly co-anchor of ABC World News Tonight until he was seriously injured in a roadside bombing in Iraq.

Just a few weeks ago, TV Squad reported that Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia acquired Emeril Lagasse's media properties. Now, the Bam-man will be starring in a new daily cooking show. Celebrity chef and restauranteur Emeril Lagasse will star in Emeril Green, a show that will be shot entirely at Whole Foods Market. The enterprise will be shot in front of a live audience, and will air on Planet Green, Discovery Communications' new 24/7 eco-lifestyle television network, PG launches in June 2008 with a bunch of new shows, including Emeril Green which will launch in July.

Discovery Communications (the parent company of the Discovery Channel) has purchased the environmentally-focused blog TreeHugger. There's no official word on how much the deal was worth, but the New York Post reported that Discovery paid about $10 million in green for the green web site.

Why buy a blog focused on green lifestyles? Discovery plans to launch the first 24 hour channel devoted to sustainable living. The company is essentially replacing its Discovery Home Channel with Planet Green. The channel will be available in 50 million households at launch.

TreeHugger will continue to publish its regular blog, but will also produce content for the Planet Green website. TreeHugger founder Graham Hill says he's recently been approached by more than 15 large companies interested in buying the 4 year old blog. But he says Discovery is the company that most closely understands TreeHugger's environmental mission and has the ability to bring its message to a wide audience.