Tuning in to TV

Another O show

Sony Pictures Television and Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions are finalizing plans for a new syndicated daytime show featuring interior designer and “Oprah Winfrey Show” regular Nate Berkus, Broadcastingcable.com reports.

The new project should be ready for a fall 2010 rollout, B&C; says.

SPT is also behind Harpo’s rookie syndicated show “Dr. Oz,” another program built around a Winfrey personality. Harpo launched previous Winfrey personality shows such as “Dr. Phil” and “Rachael Ray.”

Mr. Berkus has been a featured design expert for “The Oprah Winfrey Show” since he first appeared in 2001 and also hosts his own show on Miss Winfrey’s XM satellite radio channel.

YouTube news

Celebrities beware: YouTube is making it even easier for anyone with a camera phone to turn your behavior - be it mundane or sensational - into news.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the world’s top purveyor of Internet video has launched YouTube Direct, whereby TV and online news editors can obtain video from so-called “citizen journalists” - and even request such video be shot by amateurs seeking attention.

It’s not entirely about celebrities, of course. Many news outlets will be seeking disaster footage, for example, or rowdy behavior at political town-hall meetings. When a YouTube user has video he or she thinks will interest the mainstream media, YouTube Direct can make it easy for editors, producers and journalists to contact the user.

“News organizations always want to verify the content they use,” says Steve Grove, head of news and politics at YouTube.

Testing the service now are Huffington Post, National Public Radio, Politico, the San Francisco Chronicle and a few Boston TV stations.

Also on Monday, Univision said it would supply Spanish-language TV shows to YouTube from its three networks: Univision, TeleFuture and Galavision.

MTV gets ‘It’

MTV Networks has nabbed the TV rights to the Michael Jackson documentary “This Is It” from Sony Pictures. According to Variety, the deal will make the film available to MTV and its sibling networks in 2011 for a six-year window.

“This Is It,” which chronicles Jackson’s rehearsal for a series of London concerts that were set to begin just weeks before his death in June, has raked in $222.6 million internationally since its Oct. 28 debut.