Rival soaps top Emmy nominations

5/2/2013

CBS’ soap The Young and the Restless has a leading 23 Daytime Emmy nominations, followed by ABC rival General Hospital with 19.

Nominations for the 40th annual Daytime Emmy awards were announced on Wednesday morning. The award ceremony will be June 16 in Beverly Hills, Calif., televised for the second year on the cable network HLN.

PBS’ venerable children’s show Sesame Street and the NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives both earned 17 nominations.

Prosthetics fund

Country star Kenny Chesney is starting a fund to help those who lost limbs in the Boston Marathon bombing.

A Tuesday news release says Chesney has established the “Spread the Love” fund with his own donation and will gift sales of his single by the same name as well. Donations will go to Boston Medical Center and other area facilities. Fans also can donate directly to the fund at http://bmc.org/Kenny. The money will go to the purchase of prosthetics and fitting, follow-up care, and physical therapy.

Same role, new show

Actor Tyler Blackburn is moving from ABC Family’s biggest hit, Pretty Little Liars, to its spinoff.

The network announced Tuesday that the actor will star in Ravenswood, which will premiere in October. Blackburn’s character Caleb Rivers will cross over to the new series.

Ravenswood will follow five strangers whose lives become intertwined by a deadly curse that has plagued their town for generations.

Honoring dad

Candice Bergen is producing a film about her late father, the famed ventriloquist Edgar Bergen.

The project will tell the story of Bergen’s dad and his ventriloquist’s dummy that became an unlikely celebrity, a spokesman said Tuesday. The movie will be based on Candice Bergen’s 1984 memoir, Knock Wood.

In a statement, Murphy Brown star Bergen said her father was overshadowed by the 3-foot-long wood character named Charlie McCarthy, who got the best lines while the reserved Edgar Bergen played straight man.

A release date for the film, titled Charlie McCarthy, was not announced.

Lawsuit

Curb Records is suing Tim McGraw. Again.

The Nashville-based label has filed a lawsuit against the country music star and Big Machine Records in federal court, alleging copyright infringement and breach of contract.

Curb has also sued McGraw in Tennessee state court, but has thus far failed to keep McGraw from recording new music under a new agreement with Big Machine, which put out “Two Lanes of Freedom” earlier this year.

The lawsuit asks for a return of master recordings, compensatory and punitive damages and an injunction against future recording or releases until its contract with McGraw has been fulfilled. The state case remains in front of a judge, but the court allowed McGraw to record for a new label in a decision that’s been upheld on appeal.