Tired of ringing in the new year with Dick Clark?
Cable is offering some alternatives to seeing the ball drop from Manhattan’s Times Square with the venerable Clark, three years removed from a stroke, again making the countdown aided by sidekick Ryan Seacrest on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 2008 on ABC.
On MTV, mostly everybody’s favorite bisexual, Tila Tequila, will give viewers a shot at watching the festivities against the backdrop of a costume party. The Myspace.com pin up girl, whose bisexual dating competition show A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila produced big Nielsen numbers for MTV this fall, will host Tila Tequila’s New Years Eve Masquerade 2008.
DJ Travis of Gym Class Heroes will spin tunes amidst performances by Mary J. Blige, Kid Rock, Fabolous, Paramore, Good Charlotte, Wyclef, Boys Like Girls and Flo Rida.
Shot guests are expected to include series favorite Domenico, who's getting his own MTV dating spinoff series, That's Amore!, and film student Bobby Banhart, who won Tequila's heart over firefighter Dani Campbell.
For the fourth year, CNN’s Anderson Cooper will also be on the scene from the “Crossroads of the World.” In addition to CNN anchors and correspondents supplying reports from celebrations around the nation and globe, New Year’s Eve Live with Anderson Cooper will feature musical performances from Earth, Wind & Fire in Las Vegas and Miranda Lambert and Widespread Panic, both in Atlanta. Also joining Cooper: comedienne Kathy Griffin.
For its part, the total sports network will present a truncated thrill-fest, New Year, No Limits. Following Auburn and Clemson in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl from Atlanta at approximately 11:15 p.m., ESPN will cut live to a parking lot-turned football field at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, where motorcross star Robbie “Maddo” Maddison will attempt to break the long jump motorcycle record in an event sponsored by Red Bull.
The 90-minute telecast, co-hosted by Joe Tessitore and Mark Schlereth, was expected to be twice as long, but Rhys Millen injured himself during preparation for what was supposed to do a 360-degree flip in a truck. The show is also being distributed on the Armed Forces Network.
Regional service CN8, The Comcast Network will try and urge the mood earlier with a live performance by Foreigner from Universal Orlando Resort. In addition to the band that sounded such radio hits as "Urgent," "Cold as Ice" and "Hot Blooded," the network’s Celebrate ’08, which starts at 9 p.m. will feature comedians Keith Robinson and Lynee Koplitz. E! Entertainment’s Todd Newton and CN8’s Backstage personality Bessie Tsionis will co-host the proceedings.
For those interested in watching history of another kind, New Year’s Eve will see Viacom channel-sharers, the preschool-targeted Noggin and the tween and teen-aimed The N, go their separate ways.
And On Jan. 1, Court TV morphs into TruTV.
