The week that was

Warner Bros. Domestic TV cleared its new talk show with Caroline Rhea at KCAL(TV) Los Angeles and WCIU-TV Chicago for the fall, bringing its clearance level to 64%. Also, eight ABC owned-and-operated stations signed on for the show, including WABC-TV New York. The Caroline Rhea Show is now sold in more than 64% of the country for the fall. Co-owned syndication unit Telepictures Distribution has also sold new strip Celebrity Justice in more than 70% of the country for its fall debut. It cleared on WNBC(TV) New York, KCAL Los Angeles and WMAQ-TV Chicago. ...

Paramount Domestic TV renewed freshman series Hot Ticket on the CBS O&Os for next season and sold its new strip Life Moments in more than 60% of the country. Clearances for Hot Ticket include WCBS-TV New York and KCBS-TV Los Angeles. Life Moments, which was already cleared on the NBC O&Os, has added several new markets, including KIRO-TV Seattle and KSTP-TV Minneapolis. ... Tribune Entertainment and Fireworks Entertainment cleared new action series The Ultimate Adventure Company in more than 60% of the country for the fall, including all its owned stations. ... Studios USA and Universal Worldwide TV may be merged into one entity in the coming weeks, but the two Vivendi Universal syndicators continued to work separately at NATPE last week. Studios USA renewed Crossing Over With John Edward in more than 65% of the U.S., and Universal Worldwide TV renewed Blind Date for a fourth season and The 5th Wheel for a second. ... New syndicated series Texas Justice and Weakest Link had respectable debuts in the national weekly ratings. Twentieth Television's new court series, which started as a slow-rollout last September, debuted on the national scene as the highest-rated new strip in syndication, with a 2.0 Nielsen rating. That tied Crossing Over With John Edward for the week of Jan. 7-13. The daytime version of NBC game Weakest Link started off with a 1.8 rating. ...

Former Paramount Television Chairman Kerry McCluggage's duties have been turned over to two top executives as expected. Garry Hart, who has been president of Paramount Network Television, and Joel Berman, who has been running Paramount Domestic Television, will separately handle the Viacom studio's production and distribution chores, respectively.

Former General Electric Chairman and author Jack Welch will make quarterly contributions on CNBC's Squawk Box. His first appearance will be Feb. 7, the day CNBC unveils schedule changes and a few new shows. Welch also will contribute to CNBC's flagship show Business Center. ...

After being temporarily reduced to part-time carriage, C-SPAN is back full-time on Adelphia Communications' Los Angeles-area systems. On Jan. 1, Adelphia removed C-SPAN and sister net C-SPAN2 from prime time to make room for FCC "must-carry" outlets. Now the cable operator has agreed to restore C-SPAN to 400,000 subs by March 1. C-SPAN2's status has not yet been resolved.

FCC Chairman Michael Powell checked out of Walter Reed Hospital Friday after two days of tests for a lingering illness. FCC staff did not know if there was a diagnosis for the illness that forced him to cancel a Jan. 8 Q&A at the Consumer Electronics Show and left him too weak to make last week's scheduled appearance at NATPE.