HBO Renews 'Newsroom' & 'True Blood'

The Newsroom has been renewed for a second season and True Blood has been renewed for a sixth.

Aaron Sorkin’s drama, The Newsroom, debuted as HBO’s third-best drama series on June 24 with 2.1 million viewers, behind Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones. The show centers on the inner workings of a cable news network and has been compared to the trials and tribulations of political commentator Keith Olbermann. Sorkin denies such comparisons stating to The Hollywood Reporter, “This is meant to be an idealistic, romantic, swashbuckling, sometimes comedic but very optimistic, upward-looking look at a group of people who are often looked at cynically.”

Meanwhile, True Blood returns for a sixth season after drawing in 5.2 million viewers with the season premiere. This left the show down a million viewers since last year. Despite the most recent episode garnering 4.66 million viewers, it still ranked as Sunday’s highest-rated cable show. Showrunner Alan Ball will pass the torch to Mark Hudkis next season. He first developed the series based on the books by Charlaine Harris. Ball won’t be gone completely though. He’ll stick around as an executive producer while working on other projects for HBO, including his upcoming drama series Banshee on HBO’s sister network Cinemax.