Thursday, October 28, 2010

ION Television November/December 2010 Schedule, New Movie Deals; Halloween 2010 Specials and Marathons on TV

This November and December on ION Television, the regular schedule will of course remain the same, but there will be a few stunts and lots of holiday movies in time for the holidays! The regular weekday schedule remains intact with a mix of Ghost Whisperer, Without a Trace and Criminal Minds every weekday from 3pm-1am. With these series, ION Television delivered its best season ever, growing faster year-over-year than any other broadcast or cable network, according to Nielsen Media Research. Propelled by crime dramas Criminal Minds and Without a Trace, ION has posted growth across all key demos, including A25-54, W25-54, A18-49 and W18-49. ION's ratings success, from October 2009 through September 2010, registered record triple and double-digit growth in sales prime, with a 72% increase in total viewers (1,011,000 vs. 588,000).
Back to November and December 2010, we get a few marathons in time for the holidays. On Black Friday, Friday, November 26, ION Television presents a full-day marathon of Criminal Minds from 3pm-1am. We get another Criminal Minds marathon on Christmas Eve, Friday, December 24 from 3pm-1am. The following week, on Friday, December 31, we close out 2010 with a full-day marathon of Without a Trace from 3pm-1am.
Weekends have movies mainly from 1pm-1am, with some filler airings of My Name is Earl and/or M*A*S*H kicking it off. Movie premieres for November and December are: Under Siege, The Quick and the Dead, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Troy, My Dog Skip, and Gridiron Gang. We also get some encore airings of Scarface, Another 48 Hours, The Negotiator, Courage Under Fire, Point Break, Pay it Forward, The Family Stone, When Harry Met Sally, In Her Shoes, Blood Work, and The Fugitive. The holiday movies kick-off Sunday, November 28 with movies A Golden Christmas, Christmas Town, and The Christmas Clause airing throughout December.

In other ION Television updates, part of the network's commitment to expand its schedule with high profile, 'positively entertaining' programming, ION Television has inked multiple deals this month to acquire over 85 feature films. The deals are with leading Hollywood studios including Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox, and Sony Pictures Television - making it the network's largest movie buy to date. The newly acquired theatrical titles begin airing this month and will continue to roll out on ION Television's schedule through 2012.
ION Television's largest studio deal is with Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution with 44 films. Highlights of the premier package include comedy Starsky & Hutch, with Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson; the sea-faring film The Perfect Storm starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg; The Guardian starring Kevin Costner; and Analyze This and its sequel Analyze That with Billy Crystal and Robert De Niro.
The movie titles acquired from Twentieth Century Fox include the critically acclaimed and Academy Award® winning movie for Best Picture Slumdog Millionaire with Dev Patel and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, starring award-winning actor Russell Crowe.
The Sony Pictures Television package includes 16 film titles and features Ali, the biographical film of boxing icon Muhammad Ali; the political action thriller Vantage Point starring Dennis Quaid and LOST's Matthew Fox; and the crime drama We Own the Night, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg.
ION Television also acquires over a dozen titles from MGM including top films such as Be Cool, starring John Travolta and Uma Thurman; romantic comedy A Guy Thing starring My Name is Earl's Jason Lee; and Into the Blue, starring Paul Walker and Jessica Alba.
The theatrical acquisitions will be part of ION Television's new expanded daypart and late night schedule, now airing from 1PM-1AM on weekends. Additionally, the new titles will build upon network's thriving Big Movie Weekend, which has seen +48% ratings growth from last season.

Halloween is coming upon us this weekend and we need to let you know of any specials or marathons airing. Last night of course featured Halloween episodes of ABC's Laugh On Wednesday with spooky episodes of The Middle, Better With You, Modern Family, and Cougar Town. The prelim ratings for all four were great reaching season or series highs in either total viewers and/or 18-49.
We have mentioned some of these items already in past blog posts, but of course you have the 13 Nights of Halloween continuing on ABC Family, the classic Halloween special It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown airing tonight (and tomorrow) at 8pm on ABC, and the new special Scared Shrekless airing tonight at 8 on NBC. They also have Halloween episodes of Community, The Office and Outsourced following the all-new special. Classic sitcom wise, The Hub has Halloween episodes of Doogie Howser, M.D., Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley tonight starting at 9:30pm. As we mentioned, Nick at Nite has a Halloween episode of Glenn Martin, DDS tomorrow at 10pm and a Halloween episodes stunt on Saturday featuring George Lopez, Everybody Hates Chris, Home Improvement, and Family Matters. TV Land has Roseanne Halloween episodes airing Saturday night from 2-4am and more on Halloween Sunday from 12am-3am. WE tv sees ghosts with Ghost Whisperer on Saturday from 10pm-4am
Our friends at TV Tango has your FULL guide to Halloween hauntings on TV for entire month of October, including marathons, specials, TV movies, episodes, and anything else we could find that might scare you or make you want to carve a pumpkin. Head on over to TVTango as always for your holiday listings!


Sitcoms Airing Tonight / Sitcom Stars on Talk Shows

Sunday, April 27

The Simpsons - "Abe League of Their Moe" (Fox, 8:00PM ET/PT)
After Grampa and Moe recruit a Macedonian slugger to play in Springfield, it strains their friendship and the very integrity of baseball.

Family Guy - "A Real Who's Who" (Fox, 8:30PM ET/PT)
The Griffins spoof "Only Murders in the Building," "The Dropout," and "The Bear."

Krapopolis - "Stavros Live and in Concert" (Fox, 9:00PM ET/PT) (Repeat)
Ty's favorite singer Stavros is in town, but he also happens to be the favorite singer of Athena and her radical followers; Deliria goes on a little getaway.

The Great North - "Ham to Lose a Guy Adventure" (Fox, 9:30PM ET/PT)
Judy and Beef interfere with Ham's personal life; Wolf and Honeybee go on a quest to squash a rumor going around town that Wolf eats worms.

Complete TV Listings


Sitcom Stars on Talk Shows (Week of April 21)

Friday, April 25

  • Kathy Bates (Disjointed) - Watch Kathy on a repeat of Jimmy Kimmel Live! at 11:35pm on ABC.
  • Tracee Ellis Ross (black-ish/Girlfriends) - Tracee appears on a repeat of Late Night with Seth Meyers at 12:36am on NBC.
  • Paul F. Tompkins (The Great North/BoJack Horseman/DAG) and Greta Titelman (Fantasmas/Search Party/Los Espookys) - Paul and Greta are guests on a repeat of After Midnight at 12:37am on CBS.
  • Yvonne Orji (Insecure) - Tamron Hall has a DAYTIME EXCLUSIVE with Yvonne who is now hosting Pop The Balloon Live on Netflix, so check your local listings.
  • Tiffany Haddish (The Last O.G./The Carmichael Show) - Tiffany co-hosts NBC's Today in the 10am hour.
  • Valerie Bertinelli (Hot in Cleveland/Café Americain/Sydney/One Day at a Time) - Drew and Valerie are joined by Carla Hall in the kitchen to whip up some delicious cozy food on The Drew Barrymore Show, so check your local listings.
  • Amy Schumer (Life & Beth), Jillian Bell (Bless the Harts/Idiotsitter/Eastbound & Down/Workaholics) and Brianne Howey (Dollface) - The cast of the new movie Kinda Pregnant join Drew to dish on their new film on a repeat of The Drew Barrymore Show, so check your local listings.
  • Joel Kim Booster (Loot/Shrill) - Joel talks about Bravo's Love Hotel on Access Daily with Mario & Kit, so check your local listings.


New on DVD and Blu-ray

I Love Lucy - The Complete Series (Blu-ray) Seinfeld - The Complete Series (Blu-ray) Bewitched - The Complete Series - 60th Anniversary Special Edition (Blu-ray) The Wayans Bros. - The Complete Series Frasier (2023) - Season Two

11/05 - I Love Lucy - The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
11/12 - The King of Queens - The Complete Series (Blu-ray) (2024 Release)
11/19 - SpongeBob SquarePants - The Complete Fourteenth Season
11/26 - Looney Tunes Collector's Choice - Volume 4 (Blu-ray)
12/03 - Angel (1960-1961) - The Complete Series, Volume 1
12/17 - Seinfeld - The Complete Series (Blu-ray) (4K UHD)
01/28 - Wait Till Your Father Gets Home - The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
02/04 - Bewitched - The Complete Series - 60th Anniversary Special Edition (Blu-ray)
02/04 - The Wayans Bros. - The Complete Series
03/11 - Frasier (2023) - Season Two
04/01 - Abbott Elementary - The Complete Third Season

More Recent and Upcoming TV DVD and Blu-ray Releases / TV Shows on DVD, Blu-ray and Prime Video / DVD Reviews Archive


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