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HOWARD STERN: Radio star Howard Stern announced Thursday he will be a judge on the TV competition series "America's Got Talent" next year.

Stern's agent, Don Buchwald, brought the contract for the shock jock to sign on "The Howard Stern Show."

The segment can be seen on Howard TV On Demand on digital cable starting Friday.

Stern will join Howie Mandel and Sharon Osbourne on the judges' panel for Season 7 of "Talent." Nick Cannon is the show's host.

BARBARA WALTERS: ABC News says U.S. broadcast journalist Barbara Walters was joking when she told President Barack Obama she plans to retire next year.

TMZ quoted a source whose name it did not report as saying Walters quietly told Obama after she finished chatting with him at the White House, "I need one more interview with you because I'm retiring next year."

The entertainment news Web site said Walters didn't make the statement on the air, but her microphone was live and numerous people heard the remark.

Jeff Schneider, senior vice president of ABC News, downplayed the story Thursday.

"Barbara has joked that she is retiring every year since the Clinton administration. Anyone who just did a day trip to Syria, 90-minute prime-time special and an interview with the president and first lady hardly sounds like someone retiring from anything," Schneider told TMZ.

Asked if Walters might have been using her retirement as a ploy to get Obama to sit for another interview, Schneider laughed and told TMZ, "She's one of the greatest bookers who ever lived."

MADONNA: U.S. pop star Madonna has completed a new album, which is set for release in late March, Interscope Records confirmed Thursday.

The CD will be her first in five years. It is part of a three-album deal the recording star's long-time manager Guy Oseary and Live Nation Entertainment negotiated with the record label.

"Gimme All Your Luvin," the first single from the album, will be released the last week in January, prior to her Bridgestone Halftime Super Bowl appearance Feb. 5.

"W.E.," a film Madonna directed and co-wrote, is scheduled for a wide theatrical release Feb. 3.

RODNEY ATKINS: Country music star Rodney Atkins has filed for divorce from his wife Tammy Jo, court documents filed in Williamson County, Tenn., indicate.

The move comes after Atkins was arrested last month for allegedly attacking his spouse during a drunken argument in their home.

He has denied any wrongdoing but the divorce documents say both parties agree they are "unable to live together successfully as husband and wife," TMZ reported Thursday.

They each say in the legal papers the other is "guilty of such inappropriate marital conduct as renders further cohabitation unsafe and improper," the entertainment news Web site said.

Tammy Jo is demanding sole custody of their 10-year-old son, while Rodney has requested joint custody of the child, TMZ reported.