Last night in Paris's Place de La Bastille, French socialists cheered the election of François Hollande and celebrated Nicolas Sarkozy's defeat. But today, big change may be difficult for the new French president.

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Fans of daytime soap operas are accustomed to plot twists that bring beloved characters back from the dead. Now some hope the same thing can happen to the ailing genre itself.

Thousands of soap opera diehards are mobilizing to save "All My Children" and "One Life to Live," two of the once-fecund genre's six remaining examples. Walt Disney Co.'s ABC said in April it will replace the decades-old programs with less-costly reality shows, as daytime-soap viewing continues to decline.

The movement has included an original song titled "We Won't Let Our Soaps Die" and an effort to collect data from TV set-top boxes to prove soaps are more popular than Nielsen Co.'s ratings suggest. Some fans say they have consulted a lawyer about suing Disney for causing "mental distress."The soaps' remaining fans—some of whom call themselves "soapers"—have responded with a barrage of websites, picket lines and an ad in a Hollywood trade magazine urging Disney to reconsider, or sell the soaps to another company willing to keep them going.

On Monday, a group called Fans United Against ABC plans...

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This fall, TV executives are betting laughter can make a comeback.

As broadcast networks unveil their schedules for the coming season to advertisers this week, they have ordered up a bumper crop of sitcoms and expanded the hours they devote to comedy. The move accelerates a renaissance in a genre that has for years lagged behind dramas in viewers—but remains highly profitable when it works.

With "upfront" week scarcely started, the four biggest broadcast networks have already ordered 15 new live-action comedies, according to people familiar with their plans, with others in development. That tally is up from 13 last upfront, and eight in 2008, according to figures from Interpublic Group of Cos.' Magna Global.

Walt Disney Co.'s ABC and Comcast Corp.'s NBC are making the biggest bets, ordering 11 new sitcoms between them. ABC has ordered five new sitcoms, including one starring Tim Allen, and is expected to announce a new comedy block when it unveils its schedule to advertisers on Tuesday, according to people familiar with its deliberations. NBC said Sunday that it would supplement its Thursday comedies, which include "The Office" and "30 Rock," with a new batch on Wednesday nights, including "Up All Night," starring Christina Applegate and Will Arnett.

"Any network wants more comedy," said NBC Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt in an interview. "It's the most desirable type of programming in financial terms."

Comedies can be tricky. But networks have incentive to try. Sitcoms keep more ...

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Cops are packing magic powers. Criminals from the 1960s haven't aged. And a young Edgar Allan Poe is prowling 19th-century Boston as a private eye.

This spring, U.S. television networks are testing out unusual—and even bizarre—ideas for TV shows as the networks look for ways to stand out from a growing deluge of entertainment options.

The five biggest English-language TV networks are starting production on roughly 80 pilot episodes for new scripted shows. By mid-May, each network will select anywhere from a handful to a dozen of the pilots to make into TV series for its fall lineup.

But after turning up few big hits last season, some TV executives say they are working on a larger number of "noisy"—industry jargon for conspicuous or atypical—ideas in an effort to be noticed. A rebounding ad market also is making TV executive more bullish about taking risks.

There are at least five pilots set decades, even more than a century, in the past. Over a dozen potential shows involve magic, fairy tales or explore an alternate reality. And a handful started with crude titles.

"Big concepts became more attractive to us this year," said Suzanne Patmore-Gibbs, head of scripted programming at Walt Disney Co.'s ABC network. "We were looking for something that would break through the clutter."

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Just as the digital wave transforms the television industry, Hulu, a pioneer of Internet TV, is in internal discussions to dramatically transform itself.

The free online television service has become one of the most-watched online video properties in the U.S. and a top earner of web-video ad dollars since its 2008 launch.

But its owners—industry powerhouses NBC Universal, News Corp. and Walt Disney Co.—are increasingly at odds over Hulu's business model. Worried that free Web versions of their biggest TV shows are eating into their traditional business, the owners disagree among themselves, and with Hulu management, on how much of their content should be free.

Fox Broadcasting owner News Corp. and ABC owner Disney are contemplating pulling some free content from Hulu, say people familiar with the matter. The media companies are also moving to sell more programs to Hulu competitors that deliver television over the Internet, including Netflix Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc.

And in what would be a major shift in direction, Hulu management has discussed recasting Hulu as an online cable operator that would use the Web to send live TV channels and video-on-demand content to subscribers, say people familiar with the talks. The new service, which is still under discussion, would mimic the bundles of channels now sold by cable and satellite operators, the people said.

When it launched three years ago, Hulu was the networks' answer to Google Inc.'s video-sharing site YouTube. It provided an easy—and legal—way for viewers to watch new TV shows online whenever they wanted for free. It now offers more than 30,000 television episodes, and its new Hulu Plus subscription service lets users watch on Internet-connected TVs and portable devices like the iPad.

Hulu's managers say tumult is natural in such a fast-changing industry. "When we blaze trails, which is what Hulu is about, it takes time," said Jason Kilar, Hulu's chief executive, in an interview. "That is not for the faint of heart, and we understand that."

But the digital landscape is changing so fast that Hulu's future is unclear. The networks are grappling...

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MESQUITE, Nev.—On Saturday, hundreds of arm wrestlers will pour into a 33,000-square-foot tent here for the final day of their sport's yearly international championship. Next week, a rival group says it will be in Mykolayiv, Ukraine, to do the same thing.

There is a break in the world of organized arm wrestling. More than a decade ago, a Canadian construction-company owner named Fred Roy was expelled from the World Armsport Federation and started a new group, dubbed the World Armwrestling Federation. Each body began crowning its own world champions in 1998.

For years, the two groups have wrestled with the idea of reunification, sharing a goal of international recognition and a shot at the Olympics. But the latest talks at the world level collapsed in 2005. "This isn't unification! This is dictatorship!" one of the original group's leaders posted on his website at the time.

Since then, the breakaway group appears to have gained the upper hand. In recent years, it has won allegiance from many of its rival's former members in Europe, the U.S. and South America. Mr. Roy says 722 competitors from 41 countries are at this year's event, held at the

Meanwhile, the original group, now run by a retired Egyptian Army general, announced…

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In February, an Apple Inc. marketing executive traveled to a Los Angeles sound-stage with a special payload: two early iPads. The tablet computers were being escorted for a top-secret appearance on ABC's sitcom "Modern Family."

The episode aired Wednesday evening before about 9.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen Co. In it, geeky father character Phil Dunphy pines for an iPad, whose April 3 release coincides with his birthday. "It's like Steve Jobs and God got together to say 'We love you, Phil,"' the character said of the coincidence, referring to Apple's chief executive.

The episode, so close to the iPad's release, highlights the increasingly blurry line between entertainment and marketing. Years ago, real products made only brief appearances in the background of shows. Now brands often get co-staring roles in some of the most popular programs on television.

"It was a very highly guarded guest star," said Steve Levitan, the show's co-creator. Apple did not ask the show staff to sign a non-disclosure agreement, Mr. Levitan said, "but they asked us not to tweet about it."

"Modern Family" writers hatched the iPad idea themselves, shortly before the multimedia device was officially announced in January, Mr. Levitan said. They had planned to….

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LAS VEGAS -- Lisa Howfield, general manager of KVBC, the NBC affiliate here, watched last year as the broadcast-television business began to shrink. She started cutting. She combined departments. She made do with old equipment, and did away with luxuries like yearly sales getaways.

In December and January, she laid off 15 employees, or 6% of her staff. After the weatherman left last month, one of the morning news anchors took on both jobs. "It's like a bad roller-coaster ride," says Ms. Howfield. Her station's full-day viewership is down 7.7% this TV season from the same period last year, according to Nielsen Co., and Ms. Howfield expects her ad revenue in 2009 will be down 30% from 2008.

Local television stations like Ms. Howfield's dominated the TV business for more than half a century. They inspired the term "network": a web of Channel 7s and 11s that delivered shows from ABC, CBS, NBC -- and later, Fox -- plus local news, syndicated reruns and talk shows. Because the stations owned the licenses to the airwaves that broadcast TV signals, big networks couldn't distribute content without them. In turn, local stations became the vehicles for the greatest mass-market advertising blitz in history.

Now, with their viewership in decline and ad revenue on a downward spiral, many local TV stations face the prospect of being cut out of the picture. Executives at some major networks are beginning to ...

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During Tuesday night's presidential debate, Sen. Barack Obama was talking about health care, and most of 25 undecided voters in Columbus, Ohio, liked what they heard. They turned knobs on small, wireless dials in their hands -- and a graph representing their immediate reaction was aired live to about 9.2 million people watching CNN.

CNN has aired these squiggly lines live on the bottom of the screen for all of the debates held since September. Some have called the readout addictive, others find it distracting.

But live feedback graphics may have another effect. Recent psychological experiments suggest they can influence viewers' judgments. That might give tiny focus groups outsize influence, especially over undecideds. But there is a broader question: How much of our political opinions are our own? …

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PITTSBURGH -- In the garage of his house, Frank Sanns spends nights tinkering with one of his prized possessions: a working nuclear-fusion reactor.

Mr. Sanns, 51 years old, is part of a small subculture of gearheads, amateur physicists and science-fiction fans who are trying to build fusion reactors in their basements, backyards and home laboratories. Mr. Sanns, who owns a banquet hall here, believes he's on track to make fusion a viable power source.

"I'm a dreamer," he says.

Many of these hobbyists call themselves "fusioneers," and have formed a loosely knit community that numbers more than 100 world-wide. Getting into their elite "Neutron Club" requires building a tabletop reactor that successfully fuses hydrogen isotopes and glows like a miniature star. Only 42 have qualified; some have T-shirts that read "Fusion -- been there...done that."

Called fusors and based on ...

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Tribune Co. is slashing staff and space at newspapers across the country. But in another old-media business -- local television news -- it's moving in the opposite direction.

Nearly half of Tribune's 23 broadcast stations are expanding or launching local news operations, many of them hiring staff as a result. The biggest investment is in KSWB-TV in San Diego, which has hired a staff of nearly 50 to produce the station's first in-house news broadcasts in nearly three years.

KSWB abandoned its original newscast in 2005 to save money. The new programs, which debut Friday, will be radically different from the old, with a format that borrows from conventions of cable television and incorporates interactive elements of the Web. Morning anchor Arthel Neville will wander an open set, chatting with reporters, as well as with "Jack the Cop," a former sergeant for the San Diego County Sheriff's Department. Some correspondents could join via Web cam. If the format works well, the company could import elements to other parts of its empire.

"It's practically like there's a government regulation that regulates how a TV station sounds," says Lee Abrams, Tribune's chief innovation officer. He notes that some of local-news conventions are fodder for parody, from "The Simpsons" to the 2004 movie "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," which stars Will Ferrell as a pompous 1970s news anchor -- and is set in San Diego. "It's out of date and ready for reinvention," he says. ...

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Comedian Annabelle Gurwitch is trying to show a bunch of fraternity brothers the virtues of saving water. So, while a TV camera rolls, she strips down to gym shorts and bra, and jumps into a low-flow shower with one of them.

Ms. Gurwitch's conservation-minded show is part of a two-year, $100 million push by Discovery Communications LLC to launch an around-the-clock TV network called Planet Green. If successful, its "eco-lifestyle" brand could prove lucrative, attracting advertiser-friendly viewers who are willing to pay extra for hybrid cars and organic food. But Discovery must avoid being snared in a potential green-marketing backlash -- or, worse, found guilty of making boring TV shows. ...

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Ann Tucker is pushing a shopping cart through the produce section of a supermarket in Plainview, N.Y., when she turns to kiss her husband. The supermarket kiss is a regular ritual for the Tuckers. So are the restaurant kiss and the traffic-light kiss. "I guess we do kiss a lot," says Mrs. Tucker, a 39-year-old mathematician at a money-management firm.

Mrs. Tucker is living happily ever after, and scientists are curious why. She belongs to a small class of men and women who say they live in the thrall of early love despite years of marriage, busy jobs and other daily demands that normally chip away at passion. ...

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