Showtime and HBO in 'Call Girl' Throwdown

Will a hooker with a heart of gold be Chris Albrecht's revenge?

The former HBO chairman, who was fired last May after roughing up his girlfriend, will co-host a preview screening of Secret Diary of a Call Girl -- the British series Showtime is betting will be its next big hit.

That was some of the news out of a "State of the Union" breakfast Showtime held for press this morning.

Albrecht is now head of global media for IMG, which produced Call Girl through its Tiger Aspect division. "Chris called me up and said, 'We've got this show and it might be perfect for you,'" says Bob Greenblatt, Showtime's entertainment president. "I'd say he knows premium television about as well as anybody."

Making the rivalry spicier, HBO is developing its own series with a prostitute protagonist: the similarly named Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl.

Greenblatt also let drop some spoilers about a returning series, The Tudors, including the news that the Anne Boleyn character will be executed in the season two finale. Of course, that's not a spoiler to anyone who knows anything about British history, but, says Greenblatt, that's a surprisingly small market segment: "We've done some focus groups and you can't believe how many people have never heard of Henry the Eighth."