Tuning In

Fox’s new six-pack

Fox is doing its fair share to stamp out the summer rerun blues.

The network announced this week that it’s adding six new series over the next four months, including “The Simple Life 2,” Associated Press reports.

Four of the new shows will be scripted, unusual for a network TV landscape usually filled with reruns and reality fare in the summer.

Fox has had trouble getting new fall series noticed in recent years because much of its October schedule is filled with postseason baseball. The successful start of “The O.C.” last summer emboldened Fox executives to try airing more shows during the muggiest months.

Three new series will air on Wednesdays, including “The Simple Life 2,” once again starring Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. The pair were filmed making a cross-country trip in a trailer, sans cell phones, cash or credit cards. Dogs Tinkerbell and Honey Child will be along for the ride.

Other summer programs slated:

“Quintuplets,” with Andy Richter as the father of 15-year-old quints, and “Method & Red,” an update of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” with rappers Method Man and Redman living in a gated community, are the other Wednesday entries. Mr. Richter starred in Fox’s critically acclaimed 2002 series, “Andy Richter Controls the Universe,” but the show couldn’t attract enough attention to get renewed.

“North Shore,” a drama about the young workers at a luxury hotel in Hawaii, starring Brooke Burns and Kristoffer Polaha.

“The Jury,” from Baltimore-born filmmaker Barry Levinson (“Avalon,”“Tin Men,” “Good Morning, Vietnam”) and Tom Fontana, re-creates a crime through the deliberations of jurors.

“Casino,” yet another Mark Burnett reality series — this time focusing on life in a Las Vegas hotel — rounds out the new schedule. Mr. Burnett’s previous work includes “The Apprentice” and “Survivor,” so anything with his name on it merits attention.

Fox viewers will have a hard time missing the series. All, with the exception of “The Simple Life 2,” will be repeated at some point during the week.

Gail Berman, Fox entertainment president, conceded that the network is fighting 50 years of history. Viewers are used to seeing networks dump their low-priority programs in the summer, she said.

“They’re skeptics, and they should be because they’ve been trained to be that,” Miss Berman said. “There’s an uphill climb on that; we know that. But we’ve got to start the ball rolling.”

Fox’s rivals will fight that lineup with a succession of reality programs. NBC and CBS are reprising five of their successful reality offerings, including “The Amazing Race,” “Last Comic Standing” and “Who Wants to Marry My Dad?”

Pax’s new batch

The Pax network also sees this summer as a good time for fresh programming. Toward that end, the network is planning two new prime-time game shows, “On the Cover” and “Balderdash.”

“On the Cover” pits three contestants against one another in a trivia duel based on images from today’s popular magazine covers, as well as those from CD and DVD releases. The winner goes on to the grand prize round where he or she must answer four questions to gain word clues about that show’s “mystery cover.”

“Balderdash,” based on Mattel’s best-selling board game, will feature three celebrity comics on the panel. The show will challenge two contestants with a series of funny bluff answers to various questions from such categories as “words,” “movies,” “people,” and “famous epitaphs.” The contestants will need to find the real answers.

The network has ordered 26 weeks of episodes for each show.

Spike’s health challenge

Spike TV, the self-declared channel for men, wants its target audience to stick around as long as possible.

So the network is launching its “Check Up or Check Out” campaign to help improve men’s overall health.

The campaign’s goal is to register at least 100,000 men to visit their doctor for an annual physical by year’s end and to have 1 million men do so by the end of 2005.

The new network will serve up public service announcements and original programs in the coming months to promote the cause.

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who benefited from a routine screening that caught his prostate cancer in its early stages, is Spike TV’s “Check Up or Check Out” chairperson.

According to the National Men’s Health Foundation, 7 million men haven’t visited a doctor in 10 years.

Compiled by Christian Toto from staff and wire reports.