Game of Thrones Gets a Premiere Date

... Winter is coming. April 17, 2011. Game of Thrones. HBO. Be there. [EW]

... Last night's Season 3 premiere of Jersey Shore was MTV's highest-rated broadcast EVER, with 8.5 million viewers tuning in to watch the eight horsemen of the douche-ocalypse get their grease on. The show is only getting stronger as it continues, with yesterday's episode drawing almost 2 million more viewers than the series' previous high. In fact, Jersey Shore was the second most-watched program of the night among adults, with only CBS' The Big Bang Theory ahead of it. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Starz CEO Chris Albrecht, the disgraced former head of HBO, has announced that there will be a second season of Spartacus: Blood and Sand. The show's future was in question after star Andy Whitfield was diagnosed with cancer. Whitfield will not be a part of Season 2 on the advice of his doctors, and no replacement has been named. But whoever it is will be required to look good with his shirt off and deliver authentic softcore-porn pelvic thrusts. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Hollywood hottie Lena Dunham has seen her HBO project Girls promoted to series. Dunham wrote, directed, and starred in Tiny Furniture, which has earned rave reviews from Hollywood's elite. Girls is a comedy following women in their early 20s who are living in New York City. [LA Times]

... Not content to only take advantage of addicts who are about to enter the rehabilitation process, A&E; has decided to also take advantage of addicts who already in the system and have failed. Relapse will follow "sober coaches" as they try to help those who have already been treated stay on the right path. Spoiler alert: They won't! [EW]

... More A&E; news: Storage Wars has been renewed for a second season. Because storage locker docudramas are all the rage. [Deadline Hollywood]

... The big match-up on February 6 won't just be between two professional football teams trying to make us forget The Black Eyed Peas' sure-to-be horrible Super Bowl halftime show. Fox, which has the rights to the game this year, is continuing the tradition of having our fair president interviewed during the pre-game special, and the interviewer holding the mic will be... Fox News' Bill O'Reilly. This should be good. [Washington Post]

... AMC has announced the premiere date for crime thriller The Killing: April 3 at 10pm. A&E; has done the same for action show Breakout Kings: March 13 at 10pm. [Deadline Hollywood]

... ABC has ordered a pair of pilots, its first such orders of the season that I would consider in the "safe" category. Man Up is male-oriented comedy that examines life as a dude through the eyes of three friends. This is different from the other Man Up project you may have heard about, which is also at ABC. The network has also ordered a pilot for Smothered, which centers on a couple and their respective pairs of overbearing parents. [Deadline Hollywood]

... And finally, the beautiful Amy Acker (Angel) has landed a lead role on USA's upcoming Common Law. She'll play the therapist of two LAPD officers who are ordered to attend couples counseling after constantly butting heads. [Deadline Hollywood]