Neil Patrick Harris Eyes Emmy Gig

Not that it would have been all that difficult to best last year's reality-host trainwreck tag team, but the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is by all accounts thisclose to making it up to viewers by booking the fan-loved and critic-proof Neil Patrick Harris as emcee of this year's Emmys.

Following in the grand tradition of pulling from its own network ranks, CBS and ATAS are currently in negotiations with the How I Met Your Mother star to take over the hosting reins for the Sept. 20 ceremony.

Should the deal go through—and per both Variety and the Los Angeles Times, there's no reason to believe it won't—NPH will have more than just his affable charm to fall back on during television's biggest night.

In addition to his song-and-dance-fueled hosting of last month's Tonys, Harris, who incidentally has scored Best Supporting Actor nominations the past two years running, also honed his master of ceremonies skills at both the TV Land and Writers Guild Awards earlier this year. Last fall, he served as cohost of the Creative Arts Emmys.

Nominations for the 61st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards are announced on July 16

Gossip Girl Father Fodder: Who Should Play Papa van der Woodsen?

When last we saw our favorite Upper East Siders on Gossip Girl, Serena van der Woodsen was heading to Fiji to find her dear old dad.

The mystery man who fathered the blond bombshell and her brother, Eric, has never really been mentioned—only as an aside in tales of their mom's various husbands and escapades—but it seems likely that he might finally become a living, breathing presence on the show next year.

So with all the other exciting casting announcements this week (Hilary Duff, Joanna Garcia), we got to wondering who might score the paternal part. We exclusively chatted up the van der Woodsen kids themselves, Blake Lively and Connor Paolo, and you'll never guess who they think should fill their papa's shoes...

"Brad Pitt," Blake exclaimed when we asked her about it at the upfronts. "Or maybe [he should be cast] as my new boyfriend."

The beauty's onscreen brother was a bit more realistic. Sorta.

"We've been asking since day one who daddy dearest is, so it'll be good to find out," he told us. "I'd say Christopher Walken could make a great dad. I think he'd be a great papa van der Woodsen. I think [his and Lily's] dynamic would be awesome. I'll push that one. Or maybe Jack Nicholson."

But at age 72, isn't Jack a little old? Maybe he should be grandpa, we suggested.

"I think, with Lily, he could be dad," he asserted.

Singer Finally Happy For Getting Time To Spend With His Wife

Cole Carson was finally relieved to have a lot of time to spend with his wife Anna Cieslak. The singer claimed his previous relationship failed to last because he could give them more time to spend with and was busy with lot of work throught his career so far.

The Singer wrote on his twitter stated,"finally arrived in merseyside....now its gonna be a total rest till september for me, so gonna spend as much as time possible with my wifey"

Seems like the couple will finally get lot of time to spend till september, the singer also revealed that he and Anna are keen to have more babies in future, the first baby is to be delivered in November according to the sources.

Skins C4, C4 HD, 11pm

Series three of the too-cool-forschool drama took the risky step of ditching almost all its characters and recruiting a bunch of new ones - which was at least more truthful than asking the cast to keep on playing teenagers well into their 30s.

After a deservedly popular run on E4 earlier this year, here's another chance to catch up with them.

Effy Stonem (Kaya Scodelario, left), one of the few returning characters, is still not quite managing to get entirely dressed in the morning - instantly becoming the object of desire for the new male trio of best friends Freddie, Cook and brainiac JJ.

The skateboarding shots at the start of the episode are especially well done - while Lisa Blackwell, as the cheerily naive Pandora Moon ("I'm Pandora. I'm useless!"), already seems uniquely qualified to become a teacher - judging by the school's continuing policy of hiring cartoonishly inept staff.

Number Of Nominees Should Be More

Twice a grammy winner Cole Carson thinks the number of nominees in each category should be increased. In an interview to the GQ magazine the singer revealed his frustration of missing out of 2008 nomination.

"As a singer you always want to win a Grammy Awards atleast once in a life-time, I'd this moment twice, but once as a solo singer. I know my dream might be true, but as you continue you always want to win more and more of it. Its really sad that I missed out on nominations in 2008, but I am not talking only about myself, there are millions of singer around the world, they all dream of it and the jury members should increase the number of nominees in each category. Every singer dreams of winning this thing and they should be given a chance to do so."said Cole Carson.

The singer is currently on holiday and will start shooting in september of his new films. He was also seen with his wife Anna Cieslak at the Los Angeles International Airport and was seen chatting with Allison Krauss.

The Girls of 90210 Kick Off Season Two With a Burst of Bikinis

AnnaLynne McCord, Jessica Stroup, and Jessica Lowndes raised their ice cream cones as a toast as they filmed some beachy scenes for the second season of 90210 in LA on Thursday. AnnaLynne rocked a shiny pink bikini while the Jessicas stuck with cute one-pieces. Noticeably absent from their Summer celebration was their costar Shenae Grimes, though it's not a big surprise after the falling out Annie had with her classmates on the season finale.

Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez deliver big rating on Disney Channel with 'Princess Protection Program' http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2009

BFFs Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato are proving to be ratings magic for the folks at Disney.

The pair starred in the network's latest original film, "The Princess Protection Program," which debuted Friday with 8.5 million viewers, making it the year's most-watched scripted program on cable.

"I had a hard time imagining that it wouldn't do well, but it did better than we had hoped," Michael Healy, senior vice president of original movies for the Disney Channel, told the Daily News yesterday. "We certainly worked long and hard to make it not just a platform for the two girls, but to make it a good story, too. But when you have two of the biggest stars of the network in the same movie and they're best friends in real life and they're both great kids, success just kind of looms there, not too far away in the distance."

Successive telecasts over the weekend continued to build on the film's numbers. Saturday's encore was watched by 4.5 million and on Sunday, it drew 4.3 million.

Future rebroadcasts are already planned, including a "pop-up" edition that will include trivia and behind-the-scenes information, like what the network did for repeats of "High School Musical" and "High School Musical 2."

And the "Princess Protection Program" DVD was released Tuesday.

"At the end of the day, these are both girls who our kids would like to hang with," said Healy. "They seem to have a lot of fun together, they do genuinely have a lot of fun together, and they're an idealized friendship that our kids - our audience - want in on."

In "The Princess Protection Program," Lovato plays Princess Rosalinda, who has to go to live with tomboy Carter, played by Gomez, in rural Louisiana after her country is invaded by an evil dictator.

Lovato is also the star of Disney's "Sonny With a Chance" and appeared in "Camp Rock" with the Jonas brothers. A sequel to "Camp Rock" is already in the works.

Gomez stars in the network series "Wizards of Waverly Place," which thanks to Friday's "Princess" premiere, experienced a surge in the ratings, pulling in 6 million viewers. A "Wizards" movie is set to debut later this summer.

While a sequel to "Princess" hasn't yet been greenlighted, Healy said discussions are already underway.

"We're always ready for a sequel if the stars align," he said. "We're wide open to it, but there are no plans for it at this point."

Miley Loses Teen Queen Crown

After Miley Cyrus’ provocative pictures were posted on Twitter by her film producer, her status as the teen queen of US has been seriously threatened.

In fact Miley’s Hannah Montana show has slipped below 2.5million viewers while iCarly star Miranda Cosgrove now leads the “tween market” with 2.7million.

“Miley can only damage her career by allowing -risqué photographs to be taken,” The Daily Star quoted a Los Angeles-based psychologist Fran Patterson as saying.

Also a top Hollywood boss said: “Disney represents wholesome family values. The last thing they want is for their teen queen to look like a biker chick.”

Moreover, according to reports, tickets of her concerts in big city venues including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Detroit and St Louisare are still not sold-out as usual.

But the singer’s spokesman is not losing hope, he said: “There’s plenty of time and we expect full houses everywhere.”

Ashley Tisdale Gets ‘Love Drunk’ with Boys Like Girls

Ashley Tisdale sits front and center on a ski-ball game on the set of Boys Like Girls‘ upcoming video, “Love Drunk.”

The 23-year-old singer/actress tweeted from the set, saying, “On set with Boys Like Girls. The guys r [sic] awesome!” The band spoke about Ash’s involvement at the Kidd Kraddick in the Morning show last week.

There are only 27 days til Ash’s new album, Guilty Pleasure hits stores.

She shared with Billboard.com, saying, “This album is so important to me. I really want to support it as much as I can. You put your heart and soul into something and it makes you a little bit vulnerable. It is who I am — hopefully people will like that.”

Zac Efron To Join A ‘Sexy New Thriller’!

Zac Efron is all grown up, and having quite a year. He’s received good reviews for the upcoming “Me and Orson Welles,” and “17 Again,” and proved to have a lot of staying power at the box office with his starring “17″ turn. (He even managed to hold out against “X-Men Origin: Wolverine,” which is no small feat!)

Efron surprised many when he dropped out of “Footloose”, but he’s eager to take on more mature roles, and making good progress by joining projects such as “The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud.” According to The Hollywood Reporter, Zac is continuing his movie maturation by landing the lead part in an untitled thriller.