NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol announced today that after over 30 years in broadcasting, John Madden, Hall of Fame coach and game analyst for Sunday Night Football since 2006, has decided to retire. "It’s time. I’m 73 years old," explained Madden in a statement released today. "I still love every part of it — the travel, the practices, the gamefilm, the games, seeing old friends and meeting new people… but Iknow this is the right time." Madden has won 16 Emmy Awards for Outstanding Sports Analyst/Personality and in 1982 became the first NFL analyst to receive the Touchdown Club of America’s prestigious Golden Mike Award. His final game — the 11th Super Bowl he called — was this February’s Super Bowl XLIII.

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John Madden retires: Sad day for NFL fans, Frank Caliendo

Variety reports that Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Bruce Springsteen are among the stars who will participate in The People Speak, a two-hour History Channel documentary based on the book A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. The project, due later this year, was exec-produced by Project Greenlight partners Damon and Chris Moore and will include archival footage, interviews, and dramatic readings.

American Idol season three winner Fantasia Barrino has signed a deal with VH1 for a new reality show about her life as a pop star and a single mother, says The Hollywood Reporter. The untitled series will debut in early 2010.

Jennifer Jason Leigh will play the estranged older sister of Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) on at least two upcoming episodes of Showtime’s Weeds, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The fifth season of the show, which follows the misadventures of a suburban housewife-turned-drug dealer (Parker), will debut in June. Leigh will next be seen on the big screen opposite Ben Stiller in 2010′s Greenberg, a drama written and directed by Leigh’s husband, Noah Baumbach (Margot at the Wedding).

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cartoon Network will produce Reborn, a live-action retelling of the King Arthur tale. The project, written by Travis Wright (Eagle Eye), will transport the legend’s classic characters to the present day.

Keshia Knight Pulliam, who played little Rudy Huxtable on The Cosby Show and more recently appeared in Beauty Shop and Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail, is developing a reality show on Oxygen, according to the Associated Press. The show, called Keshia and Kaseem, will chronicle the life and times of the 30-year-old actress and her live-in boyfriend, entrepreneur Kaseem Penn. No air date is set.

Also on Wednesday, Oxygen announced a reality program called Dance Your Ass Off, which will be like a cross of Biggest Loser and a dancing show; the "docu-comedy" Addicted to Beauty, about a plastic surgery office; The Naughty Kitchen With ChefBlythe Beck; and a broad development deal with network stars Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott, who are filming the fourth season of their own reality series.

Susan Boyle, the charming, 47-year-old unemployed Scottish woman who amazed audiences on Britain’s Got Talent and YouTube with her performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables will perform from Scotland on Thursday’s edition of CBS’ The Early Show. She will also speak about her unlikely, sudden rise to fame.

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