Courtin’ Ashleigh
Ashleigh Banfield, who’s appeared intermittently on Court TV, has inked a more permanent deal with the network.
Banfield, who first appeared on Court TV last April, will sub on the network’s sched ule as a guest host for various daytime shows, including “Open Court” and “Catherine Crier Live,” which air as part of the network’s “Court TV News” block.
Banfield, who reported live from Ground Zero on Sept. 11, left NBC last year after four years at NBC News and MSNBC.
Court TV also signed Alan Dershowitz and Kenneth Starr to provide analysis of the Supreme Court nomination hearings for John Roberts Jr.
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An extremely rare computer glitch, just before airtime, forced Ch. 11’s 10 p.m. news crew to call it a night about 15 minutes early on Sunday.
Because of a bug in the machine that stores videotape for the 10 p.m. newscast, Ch. 11 producers were forced to put their newscast together with little or no videotape, all while on the air, live. So, at around 10:45, Mary Murphy and Peter Thorne signed off, as Ch. 11 went to a “lost” episode of “The Honeymooners,” which took the station to 11 p.m. (and its “Friends” repeat).
Last, but not least:
* Tonight on “Hardball with Chris Matthews“: Three U.S. Army field commanders from the Iraqi and Afghan frontlines (7 p.m./ MSNBC).
* Dave Price (“The Early Show”) has been named the NYC Tourism Ambassador by NYC & Co. (the city’s offi cial tourism organization).
* “Iron Chef” Masaharu Morimoto on tomorrow’s “Live with Regis & Kelly” (9 a.m./Ch. 7). His Manhattan eatery, Morimoto, opens this fall in the Chelsea market.
* At ABC News: Wilf Din nick named Jerusalem corre spondent.
* “The Office” star Ricky Gervais’ new series, “Extras,” averaged 4.6 million viewers on BBC2 last week, big num bers for the BBC’s (smaller) sister network. The show pre mieres Sept. 25 on HBO.
* Tomorrow (7-11 p.m.): “Entourage” star Adrian Grenier, Daniel Sunjuta and Andrea Roth (“Rescue Me”) and Tori Spelling will be at the American Eagle flagship store on Union Square (W. 15th) to help honor teens making a difference in the world.