TUBE TALK No soup for you. With interest in TV talk shows seemingly fading -- Sally Jessy Raphael is gone, Rosie O'Donnell's handing her show over to Caroline Rhea, and Oprah Winfrey says she's calling it quits in four years -- E!'s ''Talk Soup'' has decided to serve its last spoonful next Wednesday. The daily digest of TV talk's most absurd moments has run for 11 years, won a Daytime Emmy, and launched the career of Greg Kinnear. At least current host Aisha Tyler has another gig, hosting syndicated dating show ''The 5th Wheel.''
It's just as well, since the one potential talk show that could have kept ''Soup'' bubbling for another decade is apparently not going to happen. That's what Bill Clinton said in an interview on NPR's ''The Tavis Smiley Show'' that will air Friday. ''I don't think this is going to happen,'' the former president said. ''I'd be surprised if it did.'' Of his meeting last week with NBC, in which he reportedly said he'd be interested in hosting a daily chatfest for $50 million a year, he said the impetus was neither himself nor the network but a group of investors, whom he didn't identify, who had asked him for help in getting a show financed. Still, Clinton said he was intrigued by the idea of having a forum for ''things I care about in an environment where people would be free to listen to larger numbers of people than I can speak to,'' and didn't rule out taking a pundit post on someone else's show....
''Queen of the Damned'' aside, NBC is betting viewers haven't lost their appetite for Anne Rice. The network is developing a 12-hour ''megaseries'' from Rice's trilogy of novels about the supernatural Mayfair family (''The Witching Hour,'' ''Lasher,'' and ''Taltos'') for the 2003-04 season. NBC may air all 12 hours as a weekly series or divide them among the sweeps periods in November, February, and May. Or it may not air them at all, if it doesn't get a script it likes from John Wilder (''Return to Lonesome Dove'')....
Oh, those wacky folks at FremantleMedia. The syndicator has announced that, come fall, it's replacing comic Louie Anderson as host of ''Family Feud'' with former ''Home Improvement'' sidekick Richard Karn. (What, was Anderson doing a poor job? How hard can it be to say, ''Survey says....'') The company is also updating game show chestnuts ''Truth or Consequences'' and ''Match Game.'' (Charles Nelson Reilly, call your agent.) Best of all is the company's confirmation to Variety of what sounded like a joke when the rumor surfaced last week: It's doing a show with O.J. Simpson houseguest Kato Kaelin, where a camera will follow him around as he knocks on people's doors looking for a place to crash.
COVER TO COVER So much for plans to use the next '''' volume as a marketing spur for the soon-to-be-released DVD of the first ''Potter'' movie or the theatrical release of the next one in November. J.K. Rowling may not even finish writing the fifth book this year, says her spokeswoman. ''It could be this year, and it could be next year,'' the rep said. Rowling's U.S. publisher, Scholastic, has reportedly told shareholders not to expect the tome until summer 2003, which would be three years since the publication of ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.'' Can the Muggles wait that long?
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