Are you a country star?

WUBE-FM (105.1) has partnered with the USA Network to host a local competition for USA's Nashville Star national talent search.

B105 will host an audition for 100 performers in mid-November. Details for the competition, likely to be spread over three weekends, will be announced by the station by Nov. 1, says Tim Closson, B105 program director.

USA's Nashville Star search began Tuesday at the Nashville Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

The competition is open to solo performers 18 and older. Applicants cannot have a “talent representation agreement, a recoding agreement or a commercial sponsorship agreement,” according to the rules posted at w ww.usanetwork.com.

The winner receives a recording contract with Sony Music Nashville. Nashville Star will premiere in March on USA cable.

Thirty country music stations have been enlisted to conduct auditions, including B105 and WHOK-FM (95.5) in Columbus. Auditions have been announced for Oct. 25 in Los Angeles and Nov. 2 in Orlando, Fla.

Ten finalists will be selected from five re gional competitions in January. Those 10 will come to Nashville, where they will live together and compete in the final rounds on national TV.

Rules, applications and information about audition sites are at www.usanetwork.com. Cincinnati information will be posted at www.b105fm.com.

Another search: Fox's American Idol success also has prompted CBS to revive Star Search.

CBS plans nine live one-hour shows with a tournament-style competition in four categories: adult singer, junior singer, comic and model.

Viewers and a panel of celebrity judges will determine the $100,000 winner in each category.

Ed McMahon's old syndicated series (1983-95) boosted the careers of Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Ray Romano, Sinbad and Martin Lawrence. CBS did not announce a host for its show.

"Providence" canceled: In a shocker, NBC has announced that Melina Kanakaredes' Providence family drama would conclude its five-season run with a two-hour finale on Dec. 20.

Normally, networks kill shows when they bomb. Providence wins its 8 p.m. Friday time slot and is averaging 10.2 million viewers this season.

On the other hand, ratings for the aging series are down 19 percent from last season. And it's not doing nearly as well as it used to among 18-to 49-year-olds, the folks prized by advertisers.

NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker had planned all along to pull the plug on Providence after 13 episodes, according to network insiders.

Here's why: With Friends quitting after this season, and The West Wing bleeding viewer s, Mr. Zucker has to develop hits for next season.

Mr. Zucker felt Providence had run its creative course. He wanted to make the change “a few months too early instead of a few months too late,” an NBC executive told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

There's another wrinkle: Ms. Kanakaredes is expecting a child in January, which would have complicated production on a full season's 22 episod es.

She told Mr. Zucker in late May, after NBC had announced its fall lineup, sources say. Given her due date, “we knew we had made the right call,” the exec says.

What will replace Providence? NBC's candidates include the political drama Mister Sterling, from The West Wing's Lawrence O'Donnell and starring Josh Brolin, and Kingpin, a gritty, dark drama about a Mexican drug lord.

On the other side of the ledger, NBC has picked up Sunday freshman dramas American Dreams and Boomtown for a full season.

Enquirering Mind: This Enquirering mind wants to know: Have you stopped watching The West Wing? Why?

Ratings for the Emmy-winning drama are down 23 percent nationally compared to the first three episodes last season. Some viewers have been watching the baseball playoffs, while others have switched to ABC's The Bachelor.

E-mail your comments to jkiesewetter@enquirer.com. Or send them to The West Wing, c/o John Kiesewetter, The Cincinnati Enquirer, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202, or fax to (513) 768-8330.

Debate coverage: Cable's Ohio News Network (Time Warner Channel 105) and Oxford's WMUB-FM (88.5) will carry the second of three Ohio gubernatorial debates with incumbent Republican Bob Taft and Democrat Tim Hagan at 7 p.m. today from Columbus.

The Philadelphia Inquirer and Zap2it.com contributed to this report.

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