Showing posts with label Gidget. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gidget. Show all posts
Saturday, September 20, 2025
SitcomsOnline Digest: The Paper to Get Linear Run on NBC; Saturday Night Live Announces New Hosts
Welcome to SitcomsOnline Digest! It's another busy news week, though much of the news is focused on a single late night show that has been the attention of almost all news for the past few days (for which we've only included one story about), but we have other highlights as well. Let's get going!
HIGHLIGHTS FROM SITCOMSONLINE.COM AND AROUND THE WEB
- We mentioned a while back that it might happen, and now it is confirmed that The Paper will get a linear broadcast run on NBC. (Hollywood Reporter)
- We've learned who the first few hosts of Saturday Night Live will be in the new season. (Variety)
- South Park, which took a two year break before returning and airing on an every other week schedule, skipped a new episode this past week because they missed the production deadline. (Variety)
- A revival of The Muppet Show (just a one time special for now) is headed to Disney+. (Variety)
- It was on September 17, 2001 that Bill Maher made comments on his ABC talk show Politically Incorrect that led to the end of his career at ABC, and he is reflecting on that as ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live exactly 24 years later for similar reasons. (Deadline)
- A launch date has been announced for WEST, the new digital TV network focused on classic TV westerns. (Deadline)
- Please Don't Eat the Daisies star Pat Crowley has died at age 91. (People)
- The Munsters is coming to FETV. (SitcomsOnline)
- The new fall season starts to kick into full gear as fall actually begins on Monday, with many season premieres, but most of them are game shows (The Price is Right, Let's Make a Deal, Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, and The Floor, among others).
- The Mary Tyler Moore Show debuts on UPtv on Monday.
- Catchy Comedy has a "Sally Field Day" binge tomorrow with The Girl with Something Extra and Gidget.
Saturday, February 18, 2023
SitcomsOnline Digest: Daytime TV Changes Again with Cancellation of Two Long-Running Judge Shows; Arrested Development Leaving Netflix
Welcome to SitcomsOnline Digest! This week, we have more on the rapidly changing landscape of daytime TV (including the cancellation of the last two remaining major judge shows from the 90s), news of a new cohost for Kelly Ripa, and more. Let's get going!
HIGHLIGHTS FROM SITCOMSONLINE.COM AND AROUND THE WEB
- A Starsky & Hutch remake at Fox? It is under development at the moment. (Hollywood Reporter)
- We have been talking about how daytime TV, which hasn't really had a whole lot of changes in decades, has been changing a lot lately, and now can officially say that the final vestiges of 90s daytime TV glory are gone, as Warner has canceled both Judge Mathis and The People's Court. (Variety)
- Meanwhile, even though the show has come a long way from where it started as Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, Live with Kelly and Ryan is going through some changes too, as Ryan Seacrest is out and Ripa's husband, Mark Conseulos, will be replacing him. (Variety)
- Since Warner Bros. Discovery is too cheap to make anything new, they're going to try edited reruns of Silicon Valley and True Blood on TBS and TNT, starting today. (Deadline)
- Although the seasons fans truly liked will remain on Hulu, Arrested Development is leaving Netflix in March, and it is unclear what will happen with the seasons that were produced by and exclusive to Netflix. (Deadline)
- Amber Ruffin is headed to the NBC primetime lineup. (SitcomsOnline)
WEEKLY PLANNER (FEBRUARY 18 - FEBRUARY 24)
- Decades is having a "Field Day" this weekend with marathons of Sally Field series from the Screen Gems era, including Gidget, The Flying Nun, and The Girl with Something Extra.
- Magnum P.I. is back with a new network (NBC) tomorrow night.
- A new season of Bel-Air arrives Thursday on Peacock.
- Starz brings back Party Down on Friday.
Tuesday, May 10, 2022
MeTV Network Adds The A-Team for The Summer of Me; HBO Max Renews Two Comedies for Season 2
This summer, MeTV is adding some action to its weeknight line-up! 80's blockbuster The A-Team is joining the schedule and airing weeknights at 6pm starting Memorial Day - Monday, May 30. It will replace The Addams Family and Happy Days, which are off the regular line-up. The only other change to the line-up is on Sundays. A new five-hour block titled "The Summer of MeTV Sunday Block Party" where a different show will be showcased every week on Sunday afternoons from noon to 5PM eastern starting Sunday, June 5. No details yet on which shows will pop up all summer long, but from the hints in the promo below, we may see series like The Monkees, Mama's Family, I Love Lucy, Cheers, Laverne & Shirley and Gidget pop up. That's fun as none of those series are on the current regular line-up! As a result of the new Sunday Block Party block, Full House will move to Sundays at 5:00pm & 5:30pm replacing The Love Boat. View and discuss the 2022 The Summer of Me line-up.
HBO Max has renewed the comedy series Minx for a second season. The first season, from creator and showrunner Ellen Rapoport, Feigco Entertainment and Lionsgate Television, debuted in March on HBO Max and topped Esquire's list of "Best TV Shows of 2022 (Thus Far)." All ten episodes are available on HBO Max. Minx is set in 1970s Los Angeles and centers around Joyce (Ophelia Lovibond), an earnest young feminist who joins forces with a low-rent publisher (Jake Johnson) to create the first erotic magazine for women. Season One Cast: Ophelia Lovibond, Jake Johnson, Idara Victor, Jessica Lowe, Lennon Parham, Michael Angarano and Oscar Montoya.
HBO Max has renewed the comedy series Julia for a second season. The series, which debuted March 31 on HBO Max, concludes its first season on May 5. Julia is inspired by Julia Child's extraordinary life and her long-running television series, The French Chef, which pioneered the modern cooking show. Through Julia’s life and her singular joie de vivre, the series explores a pivotal time in American history – the emergence of public television as a new social institution, feminism and the women’s movement, the nature of celebrity and America’s cultural evolution. At its heart, the series is a portrait of a loving marriage with a shifting power dynamic. Season One Cast: Sarah Lancashire as Julia, David Hyde Pierce, Bebe Neuwirth, Brittany Bradford, Fran Kranz and Fiona Glascott. Guest stars included Isabella Rossellini, Judith Light, Robert Joy, Erin Neufer, Jefferson Mays, James Cromwell and Adriane Lenox.
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Antenna TV's Summer & Surf Gidget Marathon; New Leah Remini Special on A&E on Memorial Day
Surf's up! Celebrate the unofficial start of summer this Memorial Day with a 16-hour Summer & Surf Gidget Marathon. Antenna TV will show the entire series from beginning to end of the Sally Field sitcom -- yes all 32 episodes back-to-back. What better way to binge! It all starts at 6am on Monday, May 29 and will run until 10pm ET. Gidget regularly airs Saturdays from 4-5pm and Sunday mornings from 6-7am ET. Gidget is a sitcom by Screen Gems about a surfing, boy-crazy teenager named Frances Elizabeth "Gidget" Lawrence and her widowed father Russ Lawrence, a UCLA professor. Sally Field stars as Gidget with Don Porter as father Russell Lawrence. The series was first broadcast on ABC from September 15, 1965 to April 21, 1966.
A&E Network will premiere a new two-hour stand-alone special episode of the breakout limited series Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath entitled 'Merchants of Fear' on Monday, May 29 from 9 to 11 PM ET/PT. In this two-hour special, Leah Remini and Mike Rinder explore the historical relationship between the Church of Scientology and its often vocal critics. A series of special guests candidly describe their personal experiences investigating controversial stories about the Church and how the Church has responded to their work. The special will also feature a sneak peak of the upcoming season two.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
getTV August 2016 Highlights Includes Lucy Birthday Stunt; Paley Center LA Fall 2016 Previews
getTV gets you through the dog days of summer with an August lineup of Golden Age favorites featuring award-winning dramas, side-splitting comedies, and beloved stars. The month includes a Lucille Ball birthday block; a trio of iconic divas on The Merv Griffin Show; a Gidget two-pack; stunts starring Cher, Jeff Bridges, Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant; a night of classic Mitzi Gaynor specials; and the Oscar®-winning drama The Bridge on the River Kwai; among others. getTV pays tribute to trailblazing superstar Lucille Ball with a birthday block featuring the 2003 biopic Lucy, starring Rachel York as Lucy and Danny Pino as Desi Arnaz. Then, Lucy sits down for an unforgettable episode of The Merv Griffin Show, with close friend Bob Hope, her children Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr., and her husband Gary Morton, at 11:05 p.m. ET. Lucy would have turned 104 on August 6.
Get Lost in TV with The Equalizer on Wednesday, Aug. 10. Edward Woodward is on the case as hard-nosed private investigator Robert McCall, helping his innocent clients even the odds in the hit 1985 crime series The Equalizer. This special block highlights four classic episodes starring acclaimed television actors in some of their earliest appearances, including Bradley Whitford at 8 p.m. ET; Tony Shalhoub at 9 p.m. ET; Kevin Spacey at 10 p.m. ET; and William H. Macy at 11 p.m. ET. The series was the basis for the 2014 Denzel Washington thriller of the same name, and features an unforgettable theme and score by The Police founder Stewart Copeland. And on Tuesday, Aug. 16, getTV showcases the Gidget movies. Catch some waves with America's favorite beach bunny in this double feature, starring Deborah Walley as the lovesick teen on a family trip to the Big Island in Gidget Goes Hawaiian, with James Darren and Carl Reiner. Then, Gidget (Cindy Carol) and Moondoggie take their love abroad in Gidget Goes to Rome at 10:30 p.m. ET.
The Paley Center for Media's annual celebration of the Fall TV season, the PaleyFest Fall TV Previews, will take place September 8-13, 2016, at the Center's Los Angeles location (465 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210). Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, PaleyFest Fall TV Previews is a week-long festival featuring the biggest stars of Fall TV's most anticipated new series. Fans enjoy premiere screenings and panel conversations with the stars, all in the elegant West Coast Paley Center.
2016 LA PaleyFest Fall TV Previews Panel Events Initial Lineup*
Thursday, September 8 - FOX
7:00 pm Screening of Pitch
7:30 pm Pitch panel featuring: Kylie Bunbury, "Ginny Baker" Mark-Paul Gosselaar, "Mike Lawson" Rick Singer, Executive Producer Kevin Falls, Executive Producer
8:10 pm Screening of Lethal Weapon
8:35 pm Lethal Weapon panel featuring: Damon Wayans, Sr., "Roger Murtaugh" Clayne Crawford, "Martin Riggs" Matt Miller, Executive Producer
Friday, September 9 - El Rey
7:00 pm Screening of Lucha Underground
7:45 pm Lucha Underground panel (Panelists to be announced)
8:30 pm Screening of From Dusk Till Dawn
9:15 pm From Dusk Till Dawn panel (Panelists to be announced)
Saturday, September 10 - ABC
12:30 pm Screening of American Housewife
1:00 pm American Housewife panel featuring: Katy Mixon, "Katie" Diedrich Bader, "Greg" Daniel DiMaggio, "Oliver" Julia Butters "Anna-Kat" Meg Donnelly, "Taylor" Carly Hughes, "Angela" Sarah Dunn, Creator & Executive Producer Aaron Kaplan, Executive Producer Rick Wiener, Executive Producer Kenny Schwartz, Executive Producer
1:45 pm Screening of Notorious
2:30 pm Notorious panel featuring: Piper Perabo, "Julia George" Daniel Sunjata, "Jake Gregorian" Josh Berman, Executive Producer & Co-Creator Wendy Walker, Executive Producer Mark Geragos, Executive Producer Allie Hagan, Co-Executive Producer & Co-Creator
Saturday, September 10 - The CW
6:30 pm Screening of No Tomorrow
7:15 pm Screening of Frequency
8:00 pm No Tomorrow and Frequency panel featuring: Tori Anderson, "Evie" No Tomorrow Joshua Sasse, "Xavier" No Tomorrow Peyton List, "Raimy Sullivan" Frequency Riley Smith, "Frank Sullivan" Frequency Mekhi Phifer, 'Satch DeLeon" Frequency No Tomorrow and Frequency Executive Producers to be announced.
Monday, September 12 - CBS
7:00 pm Screening of Pure Genius
7:45 pm Pure Genius panel featuring: Dermot Mulroney, "Dr. Walter Wallace" Augustus Prew, "James Bell" Odette Annable, "Zoe" Reshma Shetty, "Dr. Talaikha Channarayapatra" Aaron Jennings, "Dr. Malik Water" Ward Horton, "Dr. Scott Strauss" Brenda Song, "Angie" Jason Katims, Executive Producer Michelle Lee, Executive Producer
Tuesday, September 13 - NBC
7:00 pm Screening of This Is Us
7:45 pm This Is Us panel featuring: Milo Ventimiglia, "Jack" Mandy Moore, "Rebecca" Sterling K. Brown, "Randall" Chrissy Metz, "Kate" Justin Hartley, "Kevin" Susan Kelechi Watson, "Beth" Chris Sullivan, "Toby" Ron Cephas Jones, "William" Dan Fogelman, Creator & Executive Producer
*Panelists to appear schedule permitting. All events and panelists are subject to change.
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Antenna TV Books Gidget Memorial Day Marathon; Upfront Update: NBC Picks Up First 2 New Comedies for 2016-17
Antenna TV, Tribune's multicast broadcast network, will celebrate the unofficial start of summer with sun, surf, and sand during the 16 hour Gidget marathon airing this Memorial Day. Viewers will be able to watch the entire series and catch a wave with Gidget, Larue, and the Big Kahuna beginning at 7am ET on Monday, May 30, 2016. Antenna TV, which now airs in 128 TV markets across the U.S. reaching 86% of TV households, will air the following Gidget episodes:
07:00 AM Dear Diary...et Al
07:30 AM I God and Nobody Else We Trust
08:00 AM Great Kahuna Story, The
08:30 AM Daddy Come Home
09:00 AM The Gidget Gidget
09:30 AM Hearse, A Hearse, A
10:00 AM Gidget is a Proper Noun
10:30 AM Image Scrimmage
11:00 AM Is It Love or is It Symbiosis
11:30 AM All the Best Diseases are Taken
12:00 PM My Ever faithful, Long Lasting Friend
12:30 PM Chivalry Isn't Dead, It's Just Hiding
01:00 PM War Between Men, Women and Gidget
01:30 PM Gidget's Foreign Policy
02:00 PM Now There's a Face
02:30 PM Too Many Cooks
03:00 PM I Love You, I Love You, I Love You
03:30 PM Like Voodoo
04:00 PM Gidget's Career
04:30 PM Ego a Go-Go
05:00 PM In and Out with the In-Laws
05:30 PM We Got Each Other
06:00 PM Operation Shaggy Dog
06:30 PM Ringa-Ding Dingbat
07:00 PM Love and the Single Gidget
07:30 PM Take a Lesson
08:00 PM Independence Gidget Style
08:30 PM One More for the Road
09:00 PM Ask Helpful Hannah
09:30 PM Hard Night's Night, A
10:00 PM I Have This Friend Who...
10:30 PM Don't Defrost the Alligator
All times Eastern.
Gidget airs regularly on Antenna TV Sundays 7am ET / 4am PT.
NBC has picked up their first new series orders for 2016-17, and both are comedies! And both are single-camera comedies. The first one is titled Powerless. In the first comedy series set in the universe of DC Comics, Vanessa Hudgens (Grease: Live!, High School Musical) plays Emily, a spunky young insurance adjuster specializing in regular-people coverage against damage caused by the crime-fighting superheroes. It's when she stands up to one of these larger-than-life figures (after an epic battle messes with her commute) that she accidentally becomes a cult "hero" in her own right ... even if it's just to her group of lovably quirky co-workers. Now, while she navigates her normal, everyday life against an explosive backdrop, Emily might just discover that being a hero doesn't always require superpowers. The cast includes Vanessa Hudgens, Alan Tudyk, Danny Pudi and Christina Kirk. The second order is for Trial & Error. In this outrageous fish-out-of-water comedy, bright-eyed New York lawyer Josh Segal (Nicholas D'Agosto, Gotham) heads to a tiny Southern town for his first big case. His mission? To defend an eccentric, "rollercizing" poetry professor (John Lithgow, 3rd Rock From the Sun) accused of the bizarre murder of his beloved wife. Settling into his makeshift office behind a taxidermy shop and meeting his quirky team of local misfits, Josh suspects that winning his first big case will not be easy, especially when his client is always making himself look guilty. "Making a Murderer" can be funny! The cast includes John Lithgow, Nicholas D'Agosto, Jayma Mays, Sherri Shepherd, Steven Boyer and Krysta Rodriguez. Keep it right here for continued updates, as NBC will likely announce their fall schedule on Sunday in time for Monday morning's upfront presentation.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Antenna TV's Annual 4th of July Gidget Marathon Is On; Chiller Acquires Reruns of The River
Join Gidget on July 4th as she celebrates Independence Day with life, liberty and the pursuit of boys. Antenna TV, which airs on 77 affiliates across the U.S. reaching 66% of TV households, will air a "Gidget Independence Day" marathon beginning at 11am ET on Thursday, July 4 and running through 3am ET on Friday, July 5. The marathon will feature all 32 episodes in a 16-hour marathon from the 1965-66 series' only season run starring Sally Field. Last year Antenna TV aired every episode as well and also the feature films Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) and Gidget Goes to Rome (1963), but those movies will not be a part of the marathon this year. Not a big deal since Sally Field was not a star in those. Gidget regularly airs on Antenna TV every weekend from 2-3pm ET leading into Sally Field's other series, The Flying Nun from 3-4pm ET. Stay with us for continued updates on Antenna TV as we near the fall schedule announcement which will include new series like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie.
Chiller has acquired the basic cable rights to the short-lived drama The River from Disney ABC Domestic Television. The series aired on ABC last winter (2012) for eight episodes and starred Bruce Greenwood, Joe Anderson, Leslie Hope, Eloise Mumford and Paul Blackthorne. It was a horror series from Oren Peli. The series was announced as a eight-episode epic event and had a conclusion. There was an option to continue it beyond a first season but the ratings weren't that good for it to continue. Once ABC canceled it, there was talks of airing a second season on Netflix but it never happened. Anyway, Chiller will air all eight episodes starting Sunday, August 4 at 8:00pm. The drama will air every Sunday at 8:00pm, so now is your chance if you haven't watched any of it. And if you're a fan, you can watch it all over again for eight weeks. In this series, Dr. Emmet Cole, beloved adventurer and television personality goes missing deep in the Amazon and his family and friends abandon hope and hold a memorial service to commemorate his amazing life, but six months later Emmet's location beacon mysteriously begins to relay a signal...and the search is back on in full force.
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
2012 4th of July Marathons; Remembering Andy Griffith, Tribute Marathons on WGN, TV Land, MeTV, TMC
Happy 4th of July to all of you out there! We hope you are enjoying the day off on our country's birthday! It's time to relax and watch some TV on this holiday! We are known for letting you know what marathons are airing on TV on holidays and we will do the same for this 4th of July as well! This year due to the passing of TV legend Andy Griffith, we have many Andy Griffith tributes marathons today, along with other marathons of course, and we will tell you all about all of them. So, bring out your beach towel, BBQ some hot dogs, and stay indoors and watch some television!
Among the marathons we have already mentioned include a Gidget Independence Day marathon on Antenna TV starting at 11am with every episode airing today. They will also air Gidget movies beginning at 5am. We also mentioned a week of marathons on GMC leading into the premiere of 7th Heaven on Saturday, as today's marathon on GMC is a 4th of July Candid Camera marathon from 10am-11pm. Locally, we have an I Love Lucy marathon in New York City on WLNY-TV from 9am-9pm. Lucccccccccccy! CMT has scrapped the Married...with Children marathon we had mentioned for today. So sorry about that as Al Bundy is not going to "rock" on this 4th of July.
Other marathons of note include a The Game marathon on BET from 8am-12am and a Good Times marathon in primetime on TV One from 8pm-2am. There is also a Saved by the Bell: The College Years scheduled in the regular time block for the series on MTVN from 11am-2pm. SOAPnet has a Brothers & Sisters marathon from 10am-7pm. Of course it wouldn't be the 4th of July without a Twilight Zone marathon on Syfy from 8am-5am. TNT starts the day with a marathon of The Mentalist from 10am-5pm followed by a marathon of the new Dallas from 5-10pm, which includes a new episode at 9pm. Lifetime will turn the day over to a Wife Swap marathon from 11am-10pm. A&E has the usual Criminal Minds marathon from 9am-6pm, while ABC Family will bring out the laughs with an America's Funniest Home Videos marathon from 11am-11pm. BBC America goes into space with Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon from 8am-5am, while Science Channel has a Firefly marathon from 8am-3am. More marathons include Cloo's 24-hour House marathon, Hallmark Movie Channel's 24-hour Matlock marathon (scheduled before the passing of Andy Griffith), and USA Network's NCIS marathon from 10am-11pm. Please see below for all the tributes to Andy Griffith today which includes TV Land, WGN America and MeTV, along with a nice local marathon in Chicago on MeToo. So PLEASE read below in our tribute to him.
Firweworks in primetime are on NBC (Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular) at 9pm (with an encore at 10pm) and CBS (The Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular) at 10pm. But my pick of the night for fireworks is on PBS with A Capitol Fourth live from Washington D.C. at 8pm hosted by Tom Bergeron.
Our friends at TV Tango have compiled a FULL LIST of marathons today! Bring out your lawn chair, throw some burgers on the BBQ, and watch some television!
Among the marathons we have already mentioned include a Gidget Independence Day marathon on Antenna TV starting at 11am with every episode airing today. They will also air Gidget movies beginning at 5am. We also mentioned a week of marathons on GMC leading into the premiere of 7th Heaven on Saturday, as today's marathon on GMC is a 4th of July Candid Camera marathon from 10am-11pm. Locally, we have an I Love Lucy marathon in New York City on WLNY-TV from 9am-9pm. Lucccccccccccy! CMT has scrapped the Married...with Children marathon we had mentioned for today. So sorry about that as Al Bundy is not going to "rock" on this 4th of July.
Other marathons of note include a The Game marathon on BET from 8am-12am and a Good Times marathon in primetime on TV One from 8pm-2am. There is also a Saved by the Bell: The College Years scheduled in the regular time block for the series on MTVN from 11am-2pm. SOAPnet has a Brothers & Sisters marathon from 10am-7pm. Of course it wouldn't be the 4th of July without a Twilight Zone marathon on Syfy from 8am-5am. TNT starts the day with a marathon of The Mentalist from 10am-5pm followed by a marathon of the new Dallas from 5-10pm, which includes a new episode at 9pm. Lifetime will turn the day over to a Wife Swap marathon from 11am-10pm. A&E has the usual Criminal Minds marathon from 9am-6pm, while ABC Family will bring out the laughs with an America's Funniest Home Videos marathon from 11am-11pm. BBC America goes into space with Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon from 8am-5am, while Science Channel has a Firefly marathon from 8am-3am. More marathons include Cloo's 24-hour House marathon, Hallmark Movie Channel's 24-hour Matlock marathon (scheduled before the passing of Andy Griffith), and USA Network's NCIS marathon from 10am-11pm. Please see below for all the tributes to Andy Griffith today which includes TV Land, WGN America and MeTV, along with a nice local marathon in Chicago on MeToo. So PLEASE read below in our tribute to him.
Firweworks in primetime are on NBC (Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular) at 9pm (with an encore at 10pm) and CBS (The Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular) at 10pm. But my pick of the night for fireworks is on PBS with A Capitol Fourth live from Washington D.C. at 8pm hosted by Tom Bergeron.
Our friends at TV Tango have compiled a FULL LIST of marathons today! Bring out your lawn chair, throw some burgers on the BBQ, and watch some television!
Legendary actor Andy Griffith, best known to television audiences for his long-running roles as Sheriff Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show and criminal defense attorney Ben Matlock on Matlock, has died. He died of an unspecified illness Tuesday morning (July 3) at his home on Roanoke Island in Dare County, NC. Mr. Griffith was 86.
Griffith's early career was as a comedian and monologist. His long story, What It Was, Was Football, was released a single in 1953. It reached number nine on the charts in 1954 and became one of the biggest selling comedy records of all time. In March 1955, he made his first appearance on television in an adaptation of No Time for Sergeants on The United States Steel Hour. It was later expanded into a play on Broadway. Griffith received a Tony Award nomination in 1956 for "Distinguished Supporting or Featured Dramatic Actor" for his role as Will Stockdale. He received his second Tony Award nomination in 1960 for Destry Rides Again. Film roles would follow in A Face in the Crowd (1957), No Time for Sergeants (1958), and Onionhead (1958).
A February 1960 episode of Make Room for Daddy would serve as the backdoor pilot for The Andy Griffith Show. In the episode Danny Meets Andy Griffith, Danny Williams (Danny Thomas' character) is arrested by Sheriff Andy Taylor for going through an unnoticed stop sign in the town of Mayberry. CBS picked up The Andy Griffith Show for the fall 1960 season. The show became an immediate ratings and critical hit. It never finished lower than seventh in the ratings during its eight season run. His series co-stars Don Knotts and Francis Bavier won a total of six Emmys (five for Knotts and one for Bavier). Surprisingly enough, Andy Griffith was never even nominated for an Emmy Award during his time on the show. After 8 very popular seasons and 249 episodes were produced, The Andy Griffith Show left the air in 1968. Griffith made five appearances in the spin-off series, Mayberry R.F.D., in 1968-1969. He also served as the show's executive producer. The Andy Griffith Show cast would reunite in 1986 for the highly successful television movie Return to Mayberry on NBC. Two other television reunion specials were aired on CBS in 1993 and 2003.
Griffith started his own production company (Andy Griffith Enterprises) in 1972. He starred in some short-lived television shows such as Headmaster, The New Andy Griffith Show (1971 sitcom), Adams of Eagle Lake, Salvage 1, and The Yeagers. Some of his guest appearances included Mod Squad, Hawaii Five-O, The Doris Day Show, Here's Lucy, The Bionic Woman, Fantasy Island, Hotel, and The Love Boat. During the 1970s and early 1980s, he appeared in many television movies such as The Strangers in 7A, Go Ask Alice, Pray for the Wildcats, Winter Kill, Savages, Street Killing, Murder in Texas, Murder in Coweta County, Fatal Witness, and Crime of Innocence. Griffith received his only Emmy nomination for his role as the father of a murder victim in Murder in Texas. In 1986, he landed the role of criminal defense attorney Benjamin Leighton "Ben" Matlock on the legal drama Matlock. The show ran for 9 successful seasons and 195 episodes from 1986-1992 on NBC and 1992-1995 on ABC. Don Knotts was among the Mayberry alumni to appear on the show. In 1995, he played the dangerous and mysterious grandfather in the memorable TV movie Gramps, which co-starred John Ritter. Some of his later roles included guest appearances on Diagnosis Murder, Family Law, and Dawson's Creek. His final role was in the 2009 film Play the Game.
The Archive of American Television conducted an extensive interview with him on May 5, 1998. Griffith's survivors include his wife, Cindi Knight, and a daughter, Dixie. Ron Howard, his Andy Griffith Show co-star and friend, had this to say on Twitter: "His pursuit of excellence and the joy he took in creating served generations & shaped my life I'm forever grateful RIP Andy." He was a true pioneer of television and entertainment icon. We thank him for bringing us many laughs and quality hours of entertainment during his lengthy career. He was so talented and versatile. Mr. Griffith will be deeply missed.
Share your memories on our Andy Griffith Show message board. View photos in our photo galleries. See below for a list of TV marathons and tributes for Andy Griffith today and beyond.
Andy Griffith Tributes:
WGN America - Matlock
Wednesday, July 4, 2012 9am-5pm ET:
9am-10am/ET Matlock "The Picture" (part 1)
10am-11am/ET Matlock "The Picture" (part 2)
11am-12pm/ET Matlock "The Lemon"
12-1pm/ET Matlock "The DJ"
2-3pm/ET Matlock "Cookie Monster"
3-4pm/ET Matlock "The Brothers"
4-5pm/ET Matlock "The Fighter"
(Catch Matlock all day today on Hallmark Movie Channel as well, but this was pre-planned.)
MeTV Network - A Tribute To Andy Griffith
Wednesday, July 4, 2012, 12pm-3pm ET
MeTV will air a special tribute to the late Andy Griffith on Wednesday, July 4, from 12 noon-3pm ET with select episodes of Hawaii Five-O, The Mod Squad, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. and Make Room For Daddy, all of which Andy Griffith guest starred in.
12p - Hawaii Five-O "I'm A Family Crook-Don't Shoot"
1pm - Mod Squad "Big George"
2pm - Gomer Pyle "Opie Joins The Marines"
2:30pm - Make Room For Daddy "Danny Meets Andy Griffith"
TV Land - Andy Griffith Show Marathon
TV Land will honor the life and work of beloved actor Andy Griffith, who passed away at the age of 86, with blocks of programming highlighting his most treasured work, The Andy Griffith Show. On Wednesday, July 4 from 8am-1pm ET/PT and Saturday and Sunday, July 7 and 8 from 11am to 8pm ET/PT, TV Land will air some of the most memorable episodes in marathons of The Andy Griffith Show. The TV Land Facebook page (www.facebook.com/tvland) will also pay tribute to Andy, celebrating some of his best TV moments.
MeToo Chicago Andy Griffith Show Marathon (WMEU in Chicago)
Wednesday, July 4 2012 12pm-11pm CT; Thursday, July 5, 2012 7pm-10pm CT and Friday, July 6, 2012 7pm-10pm CT
The Andy Griffith Show airs regularly on MeToo in Chicago weekdays at 12 noon and 12:30pm CT.
TCM - Andy Griffith Movies
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
8 p.m. – A Face in the Crowd (1957) – with Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa, Walter Matthau and Lee Remick. Directed by Elia Kazan.
10:15 p.m. – No Time for Sergeants (1958) – with Myron McCormick, Nick Adams, Murray Hamilton and Don Knotts. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy.
12:30 a.m. – Hearts of the West (1975) – with Jeff Bridges, Donald Pleasance, Blythe Danner, Alan Arkin, Richard B. Shull, Herb Edelman, Alex Rocco and Marie Windsor. Directed by Howard Zieff.
2:15 a.m. – Onionhead (1958) – with Felicia Farr, Walter Matthau, Erin O'Brien, Joe Mantell, Ray Danton, James Gregory and Joey Bishop. Directed by Norman Taurog.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Antenna TV's 4th of July Gidget Marathon; Nick at Nite Adds All That, Kenan & Kel, Drops Brady Bunch
Celebrate the 4th of July with Gidget as she celebrates Independence Day with life, liberty and the pursuit of boys. Antenna TV, which airs on 65 affiliates across the U.S. reaching 60% of TV households, will air a "Gidget Independence Day" marathon beginning at 7am ET on Wednesday, July 4, 2012 and running through 7am ET on Thursday, July 5. The 24-hour marathon will feature all 32 episodes from the 1965-66 series starring Sally Field from 11am-3am ET, as well as feature films, Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) at 7am & 3am ET and Gidget Goes to Rome (1963) at 9am & 5am ET. The films do not star Sally Field, as the Hawaiian one stars Deborah Walley and the Rome one stars Cindy Carol. Both films were sequels to the original 1959 film starring Sandra Dee. All three films were before the TV series. After the TV series ended, there were two ABC TV movies - Gidget Grows Up (1969) and Gidget Gets Married (1972) - and a new syndicated series - The New Gidget (1985), which was spun-off of the TV movie Gidget's Summer Reunion (1985) - but Antenna TV will not be airing any of those.
The 1965-66 series only lasted one season on ABC but it has still popped-up in syndication, often paired with Sally Field's other comedy, The Flying Nun. In fact Antenna TV airs both series every Saturday afternoons from 1-3pm ET.
In a last minute schedule change, Nick at Nite has added All That and Kenan & Kel to its line-up beginning tonight. The two classic '90s Nickelodeon comedies will air in the 8pm hour to try and give a better lead-in to Nick at Nite's new original telenovela Hollywood Heights, which airs weeknights at 9pm. The original series has struggled in the ratings thus far and Nick at Nite is trying to give it a more compatible lead-in than Friends, which was airing in the 8pm hour. Friends was airing 8-9pm and 11pm-12am, but now it will air in a two-hour block from 11pm-1am. This means George Lopez is out of the midnight hour and only air approx. 4am & 4:30am. Yes, Dear remains in the 10pm hour out of Hollywood Heights. Also of note, Nick at Nite will remove the '70s classic sitcom The Brady Bunch effective tonight after a month of airing and replace it with The Nanny, which returns to weeknights on Nick at Nite during the 5am hour.
Stay tuned for further updates, as I just don't see George Lopez being out of primetime for long.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Antenna TV Fall 2011 Schedule; OWN and TLC Acquires Undercover Boss Repeats for Fall 2012
Welcome to the 2011 edition of our annual look at the fall schedules for cable and digital TV! We are launching this schedule barrage with the digital network Antenna TV! We have Antenna TV's Fall 2011 schedule and they will be expanding the comedy line-up to feature more sitcoms every weekday! The line-up of comedies will return to start at 1pm ET, like the original launch schedule had. However, this time the comedies will last longer into the night, too! The comedies will run until 5am Sun-Thurs nights, instead of 3am. Antenna TV will also be launching a new logo come this fall. You can take peek at what it looks like below. It is subject to change.
On to the schedule, the new fall 2011 schedule will begin on Monday, Sept. 19, 2011. From Mon-Fri, Antenna TV Theater will air from 5am-1pm with movies from all eras. Then every weekday from 1pm-6pm will feature classic sitcoms with an hour each of Burns & Allen, Father Knows Best, Dennis the Menace, Hazel in new time periods and the return of The Partridge Family to weekdays. Hazel is also returning to the daytime line-up, as currently it is airing every night at 2:00am. Mon-Thurs in the 6pm hour will continue to feature the Antenna TV staple Three's Company with the spin-offs of the series mixed in the rotation. In fact, The Ropers will join the second half-hour (6:30pm and 12:30am) for about seven weeks starting Monday, Aug. 29! This will be the second time The Ropers will be featured on Antenna TV, so catch all 28 episodes before it goes back to Three's Company for the full hour! On Fridays, the 6pm hour will continue to feature the DLT Entertainment sitcom Too Close for Comfort. Weekdays in the 7pm hour will also still have Good Times, but the sitcom will not be seven days a week anymore, though it will remain Sundays at 7pm. Moving on to primetime, Sanford & Son returns to its original 8pm hour replacing Maude, which will be moving to weekends only (Saturdays 7-8pm and Sundays 6-7pm, more on that below). The block of All in the Family, Married...with Children, Mad About You and Three's Company remains in primetime from 9pm-1am. From 1am-3am we have a schedule change though. Mon-Thurs nights will feature one episode each of weekend staples The Partridge Family, The Monkees, The Flying Nun and Gidget as they move from weekend afternoons to weekday late nights! These will replace the late night hours of Sanford & Son and Hazel. Antenna TV will replace another movie with a black & white overnight block from 3am-5am with an episode each of their signature black & white series: Hazel, Dennis the Menace, Father Knows Best, and Burns & Allen.
Fridays will be the same as Mon-Thurs essentially, except as I mentioned above the 6pm hour is Too Close for Comfort still and the continued Three Stooges Friday night prime block from 8pm-11pm, followed by Benny Hill from 11pm-2am in late night. One other change is the 2am hour will now feature Totally Tooned In, replacing Hazel. Antenna TV Theater remains from 3am-5am, so we don't get a black & white block on Friday nights (or Saturday nights either).
Moving on to Saturdays, Antenna TV Theater will still kick it off at 5am and another movie has been added at 7am, replacing Totally Tooned In (as these two hours are moving to Fri-Sat 2am). The classic animated shorts will remain in the Saturday 9am hour, though. From 10am-1pm will be the E/I block which will see some new additions starting Saturday, Sept. 3. Antenna TV Theater will now run on Saturday afternoons from 1pm-5pm, since Gidget, Flying Nun, The Monkees and The Partridge Family are moving to weeknights. Antenna TV Theater will air on Sundays from 1pm-5pm, too, replacing those four comedies. The 5pm hour on both Saturdays and Sundays will still be Too Close for Comfort and in the 6pm hour, All in the Family will now air in the hour leading into spin-off Maude in the 7pm hour. This is unique scheduling and it will be unique on Sundays well as the 6pm hour will feature Maude leading into spin-off Good Times in the 7pm hour. Love that!
Weekends in primetime will still have Benny Hill on Saturdays from 8pm-11pm followed by late night The Three Stooges from 11pm-2am. The 2am hour on Saturday nights will now be Totally Tooned In, like on Friday nights (as we mentioned) leading into a movie at 3am. And Sundays in primetime will have Sanford & Son join the 8pm hour, like on Mon-Thurs, followed by All in the Family and Soap remaining in the 9pm and 10pm hours. However, Soap will lose its 11pm hour on Sunday nights as NewsRadio joins the Antenna TV line-up airing every Sunday night! Hopefully they are saving the plays on Soap so maybe in the winter it could move to weekdays? Anyway, Too Close for Comfort will remain Sunday nights at 12am, as well Burns & Allen in the 1am hour on Sunday nights but also it gains the 2am hour creating a two-hour block of Burns & Allen. Then the black and white overnight block that will air Mon-Thurs will also air Sunday nights, so it will be airing five nights a week!
View the FULL Antenna TV Fall 2011 schedule, so you get the full details. So to recap, Antenna TV is not dropping any shows this fall, while we get more sitcoms on weekdays (1pm-5am), and the addition of NewsRadio to Sunday nights! If there are any changes to this, we will let you know. Stay with us the rest of the summer every weekday for updates on other fall schedules for cable. Coming up will be WGN America, TBS, FX and much MUCH more!
And if that is not all, the TCA Summer 2011 Press Tour starts tomorrow with cable up first and will run through Aug. 8, so even more of a reason to stay with us everyday! Dog days of summer are over here on the blog now! It's time to think about the Fall, as the summer speeds by!
Moving on, we have one story that we saved for a week or two to bring you today. OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network and TLC have acquired the off-network rights of Undercover Boss from CBS Television Distribution. TLC and OWN will each have access to the library and will determine their independent scheduling strategies with regularly scheduled episodes of the hit series set to begin airing Fall 2012. However, TLC will being airing the series once a week starting Monday, Aug. 1, 2011 airing Mondays at 8PM with and encore at 11PM. It is unclear if OWN will air the series once a week until it is available for regular airings in Fall 2012.
Undercover Boss is a one-hour reality series that follows high-level corporate executives as they slip anonymously into the rank and file of their own companies. Each week, a different executive will leave the comfort of their corner office for an undercover mission to examine the inner workings of their corporation. While working alongside their employees, they will learn about themselves, the effects their decisions have on others, where the problems lie within their organization, the perception of their company, and discover the unsung heroes of their work force.
We will have more on this when we get near Fall 2012, but for now TLC will be airing it Mondays at 8pm & 11pm starting next week. Stay tuned for more!
On to the schedule, the new fall 2011 schedule will begin on Monday, Sept. 19, 2011. From Mon-Fri, Antenna TV Theater will air from 5am-1pm with movies from all eras. Then every weekday from 1pm-6pm will feature classic sitcoms with an hour each of Burns & Allen, Father Knows Best, Dennis the Menace, Hazel in new time periods and the return of The Partridge Family to weekdays. Hazel is also returning to the daytime line-up, as currently it is airing every night at 2:00am. Mon-Thurs in the 6pm hour will continue to feature the Antenna TV staple Three's Company with the spin-offs of the series mixed in the rotation. In fact, The Ropers will join the second half-hour (6:30pm and 12:30am) for about seven weeks starting Monday, Aug. 29! This will be the second time The Ropers will be featured on Antenna TV, so catch all 28 episodes before it goes back to Three's Company for the full hour! On Fridays, the 6pm hour will continue to feature the DLT Entertainment sitcom Too Close for Comfort. Weekdays in the 7pm hour will also still have Good Times, but the sitcom will not be seven days a week anymore, though it will remain Sundays at 7pm. Moving on to primetime, Sanford & Son returns to its original 8pm hour replacing Maude, which will be moving to weekends only (Saturdays 7-8pm and Sundays 6-7pm, more on that below). The block of All in the Family, Married...with Children, Mad About You and Three's Company remains in primetime from 9pm-1am. From 1am-3am we have a schedule change though. Mon-Thurs nights will feature one episode each of weekend staples The Partridge Family, The Monkees, The Flying Nun and Gidget as they move from weekend afternoons to weekday late nights! These will replace the late night hours of Sanford & Son and Hazel. Antenna TV will replace another movie with a black & white overnight block from 3am-5am with an episode each of their signature black & white series: Hazel, Dennis the Menace, Father Knows Best, and Burns & Allen.
Fridays will be the same as Mon-Thurs essentially, except as I mentioned above the 6pm hour is Too Close for Comfort still and the continued Three Stooges Friday night prime block from 8pm-11pm, followed by Benny Hill from 11pm-2am in late night. One other change is the 2am hour will now feature Totally Tooned In, replacing Hazel. Antenna TV Theater remains from 3am-5am, so we don't get a black & white block on Friday nights (or Saturday nights either).
Moving on to Saturdays, Antenna TV Theater will still kick it off at 5am and another movie has been added at 7am, replacing Totally Tooned In (as these two hours are moving to Fri-Sat 2am). The classic animated shorts will remain in the Saturday 9am hour, though. From 10am-1pm will be the E/I block which will see some new additions starting Saturday, Sept. 3. Antenna TV Theater will now run on Saturday afternoons from 1pm-5pm, since Gidget, Flying Nun, The Monkees and The Partridge Family are moving to weeknights. Antenna TV Theater will air on Sundays from 1pm-5pm, too, replacing those four comedies. The 5pm hour on both Saturdays and Sundays will still be Too Close for Comfort and in the 6pm hour, All in the Family will now air in the hour leading into spin-off Maude in the 7pm hour. This is unique scheduling and it will be unique on Sundays well as the 6pm hour will feature Maude leading into spin-off Good Times in the 7pm hour. Love that!
Weekends in primetime will still have Benny Hill on Saturdays from 8pm-11pm followed by late night The Three Stooges from 11pm-2am. The 2am hour on Saturday nights will now be Totally Tooned In, like on Friday nights (as we mentioned) leading into a movie at 3am. And Sundays in primetime will have Sanford & Son join the 8pm hour, like on Mon-Thurs, followed by All in the Family and Soap remaining in the 9pm and 10pm hours. However, Soap will lose its 11pm hour on Sunday nights as NewsRadio joins the Antenna TV line-up airing every Sunday night! Hopefully they are saving the plays on Soap so maybe in the winter it could move to weekdays? Anyway, Too Close for Comfort will remain Sunday nights at 12am, as well Burns & Allen in the 1am hour on Sunday nights but also it gains the 2am hour creating a two-hour block of Burns & Allen. Then the black and white overnight block that will air Mon-Thurs will also air Sunday nights, so it will be airing five nights a week!
View the FULL Antenna TV Fall 2011 schedule, so you get the full details. So to recap, Antenna TV is not dropping any shows this fall, while we get more sitcoms on weekdays (1pm-5am), and the addition of NewsRadio to Sunday nights! If there are any changes to this, we will let you know. Stay with us the rest of the summer every weekday for updates on other fall schedules for cable. Coming up will be WGN America, TBS, FX and much MUCH more!
And if that is not all, the TCA Summer 2011 Press Tour starts tomorrow with cable up first and will run through Aug. 8, so even more of a reason to stay with us everyday! Dog days of summer are over here on the blog now! It's time to think about the Fall, as the summer speeds by!
Moving on, we have one story that we saved for a week or two to bring you today. OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network and TLC have acquired the off-network rights of Undercover Boss from CBS Television Distribution. TLC and OWN will each have access to the library and will determine their independent scheduling strategies with regularly scheduled episodes of the hit series set to begin airing Fall 2012. However, TLC will being airing the series once a week starting Monday, Aug. 1, 2011 airing Mondays at 8PM with and encore at 11PM. It is unclear if OWN will air the series once a week until it is available for regular airings in Fall 2012.
Undercover Boss is a one-hour reality series that follows high-level corporate executives as they slip anonymously into the rank and file of their own companies. Each week, a different executive will leave the comfort of their corner office for an undercover mission to examine the inner workings of their corporation. While working alongside their employees, they will learn about themselves, the effects their decisions have on others, where the problems lie within their organization, the perception of their company, and discover the unsung heroes of their work force.
We will have more on this when we get near Fall 2012, but for now TLC will be airing it Mondays at 8pm & 11pm starting next week. Stay tuned for more!
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Our Exclusive Interview with Antenna TV's Sean Compton; KTLA Preview of Antenna TV; 2011 SAG Nominations
We have a very exciting interview for you today. We have an interview with Antenna TV's Sean Compton (President of Programming at Tribune) about their upcoming launch. We get answers to various questions that you will all want to know about, including updates on affiliates, cable providers and of course the shows itself! As always with all of our interviews, it is in Seven Questions form. So let's first tell you a little bit each about Sean Compton and Antenna TV (as if you didn't already know).
We had the pleasure to once again interview Sean Compton, President of Programming for Tribune Broadcasting. Compton previously worked for Clear Channel radio for 16 years and was their VP Programming for 10 years before leaving in April 2008 to run Tribune programming as SVP, which includes the massive change for WGN America and now the creation of Antenna TV. Compton was promoted to President of Programming in May 2010. Compton also oversees programming for Tribune's local television stations and for WGN America. Compton is 36 years old and has worked in radio since he was in high school, and he also says his childhood hero was actually legendary NBC programmer Brandon Tartikoff. Compton is originally from Connersville, Indiana, which is between Indianapolis and Cincinnati, and he grew up watching those TV markets. See our previous interview with Sean back in 2008 regarding WGN America, when he brought back classic TV.
Antenna TV is a new digital network from Tribune Broadcasting that will debut on New Year's Day on multicast stations nationwide. 50 million homes will be reached in the first wave of clearances. Antenna TV starts broadcasting at midnight EST, on January 1, 2011 with more than 24 hours of The Three Stooges. The program lineup on Sunday, January 2, 2011 is built around a Benny Hill marathon. The network's regular programming schedule, featuring a combination of movies and classic television shows, include TV sitcoms All in the Family, Sanford and Son, The Nanny, Married...with Children, Maude, Good Times, Three's Company, The Partridge Family, Dennis the Menace, Too Close for Comfort, Father Knows Best and Burns & Allen begins on Monday, January 3, 2011. Legendary announcer Gary Owens is the voice of the channel.
"Seven Questions with Antenna TV's Sean Compton"
SitcomsOnline: First off, I have to say I am personally very excited for Antenna TV's Jan. 1 launch. Most of the series that Antenna TV will be airing are some of my favorites, including Three's Company. I have to ask, how did this idea come about and how was it made into a reality?
Antenna TV's Sean Compton: We looked around the television landscape and through the cable and broadcast universe all groups are trying to appeal to younger demos. This includes our own group with WGN America and its younger appeal with recent additions. TV Land used to own the space but has jumped deep into original programming and with the recent successes they will go deeper in original programming. We see it as a huge opportunity, This TV, the MGM movie channel, is free to over the air viewers 24 hours a day. The only over the air, all movie channel. Antenna TV will be a great over the air destination for some movies but primarily classic sitcoms. Three's Company is a big win for us, as it hasn't had much exposure on cable in many years yet still has a huge fan base. The Three Stooges appeals to every demo. Benny Hill is a riot and Married... with Children is a great late night show.
SitcomsOnline: This world of digital television is really fascinating. It has really opened up the doors for older series to air again. Still, many people out there don't have televisions without cable or satellite. Antenna TV is a free digital station, but many of the viewers will still rely on cable to watch it. We know Comcast Cable has picked it up in Chicago on channel 353, but what about the rest of the markets? Is Comcast the main cable provider for Antenna TV or will more providers also carry it?
Antenna TV's Sean Compton: Most of the markets will have a cable home for Antenna TV. If you live in a large city you should go out and buy an HD antenna anyway. I've got DirecTV and Comcast in my home and I also have rabbit ears so I can watch the dot 2 and dot 3 choices out there as well. It's starting to get interesting as broadcasters are getting their dot 2's and 3's cranked up and its going to get competitive.
SitcomsOnline: As of launch on Jan. 1, Antenna TV will be in 50 million homes (thanks to mainly the Tribune stations) including the top 5 markets, which is great. Are you close to sealing deals with stations in other top markets like San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston, Detroit and other markets like Louisville? We also hear that some markets already cleared will be getting sneak peek launches, like in Los Angeles. What will that be like?
Antenna TV's Sean Compton: The sneak peak is just some classic shows that will air on KTLA in Los Angeles to promote Antenna TV. There are a lot of OTA's (over the air) homes in Los Angeles and we want to tap into the KTLA audience and let them know it is coming. Regarding the other markets, we have signed a group deal with Local TV LLC. They own WJW in Cleveland, KDVR in Denver, WNEP in Wilkes Barre and many other markets. They are excited and sign on in early first quarter. There are other groups talking to us now and we have a number of offers for markets that we are working through now. There are a lot of affiliate interest for us out there, partially because we are committed to great programming. Zero paid programming, 24/7 movies and sitcoms. (View an Antenna TV promo!)
SitcomsOnline: The classic TV shows acquired by Antenna TV are either from Sony Pictures Television or DLT Entertainment. Does Antenna TV have an overall library deal with these studios or were these series specifically bought? If it is a library deal, can we expect schedule changes frequently with new additions? (Hoping for some Diff'rent Strokes, What's Happening Now!!, The Facts of Life, and other Sony greats.)
Antenna TV's Sean Compton: We did do an overall library deal. Jeff Wolf at Sony worked hard for several weeks putting this together with us. John Fitzgerald did the same for us at D.L. Taffner. You will see other shows weave in and out of the line-up over the next several years. Possibly we'll tap into other distributors for product as well.
SitcomsOnline: You previously mentioned to us that stunts and marathons will be done during the holidays. 2011 kicks-off with a marathon weekend of The Three Stooges and Benny Hill, but what else can we expect for other holidays later this year? I personally am hoping for a short-lived sitcom stunt one of these days, as Sony Pictures Television has plenty of short-lived, but good, series from the '70s and '80s. Among them are The Jeffersons spin-off Checking In, the Sanford & Son spin-offs Grady and Sanford Arms, the Who's the Boss? spin-off Living Dolls, and other short-lived fare such as One in a Million starring Shirley Hemphill, The Dumplings from Nicholl-Ross-West, Norman Lear's Hot L Baltimore, also Filthy Rich starring pre-Designing Women stars Dixier Carter & Delta Burke, and 704 Hauser, where a new family moves into the Bunker house from All in the Family.
Antenna TV's Sean Compton: We haven't thought it all through yet. Our big priority has been getting launched and affiliates set. As you know, I am a big fan of event programming. WGN America's Munster Mash on Halloween had monster, pun intended, ratings this past year. It is the third Halloween that we've aired it. We've done a 70's week, an 80's week, Valentine's Specials, etc. I imagine you'll see much of the same on Antenna TV especially around the holidays.
SitcomsOnline: Before we go further, I have to mention that Antenna TV will be airing two short-lived spin-offs on its schedule. The Three's Company spin-offs -- The Ropers and Three's a Crowd -- will be aired within Three's Company's hour timeslot (5pm-6pm and encores 12am-1am). That is very cool and to my knowledge, it never has been done. Back to questions, Antenna TV will also air movies, mainly during mornings and early afternoons. Will these films also be from specific studios and what are some of the films we can expect?
Antenna TV's Sean Compton: The films will come from the Columbia/Sony libraries. It's a very deep film library and prevents overlap from anything on This TV, which is fueled by the MGM library. I love Three's a Crowd and The Ropers (Three's Company spin-offs) being a part of the line-up. (Once the Ropers leave the Three's Company episodes, you'll see The Ropers scheduled in one of the half-hours, and later on Three's a Crowd in one of the half-hours after the final Three's Company episode airs.) They were solid spin-offs that at the time were short-lived and have had little exposure. Another show that I'm thrilled to have is Too Close for Comfort.
SitcomsOnline: Finally, it is really great Tribune is creating a network like this for the digital era. You have done a great job in preserving classic TV sitcoms first on Tribune's WGN America (where we previously interviewed you) and now with Tribune's Antenna TV. Will Antenna TV depend on Nielsen ratings like broadcast networks and cable networks? Or is the landscape different in digital substation world? Fans have also asked if these programs will be unedited or at least close to being unedited if there are less ads on digital substations?
Antenna TV's Sean Compton: Thank you for the kind words. We air the shows the way that the distributors supply us. We will do no editing on our end. We also will not be squeezing the end credits nor will we have an Antenna TV bug/logo on the screen during programming. Stations locally may decide to put theirs up, but nationally we will not display one. As far as ratings go, yes we will look at ratings but in the digital world it's driven a bit differently. The product we bought was done specifically to find opportunities. The Cosby Show, Cheers, Roseanne are on television in syndication and cable everyday, so we went after shows that haven't had the mass exposure in recent years. We won't live and die with this network by ratings in the first 2-3 years.
Our thanks to Sean Compton and Antenna TV. We wish them the best of luck on their launch on January 1! For more information on Antenna TV, continue to stay with us for info and don't forget to view their website http://www.antennatv.tv/. So, stay tuned right here on the blog for continued news and programming updates for this network.
Before we get to the rest of today's blog, we want to give you information on KTLA's preview of Antenna TV in Los Angeles that Sean talked about in our interview. In anticipation of this new programming, KTLA will broadcast a sneak peek of Antenna TV on its main channel, KTLA 5. Antenna TV is coming to KTLA's digital channel 5.2 in Los Angeles on January, 1 2011.
The first sneak peek will be this Saturday (Dec. 18) and will air from 2pm-5pm PT with an hour each of sitcoms Dennis the Menace, Father Knows Best and The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show. A few hours later in primetime on Saturday from 8-10pm PT, KTLA will air four episodes of Sanford & Son. Then on Sunday (Dec. 19), KTLA will give two episodes each of Gidget, Circus Boy, and The Monkees all starting at 9am PT. In late on Sunday, KTLA will air two hours of The Three Stooges from 11pm-1am with six classic episodes. And finally on Sunday, Dec. 26 KTLA will give LA fans a preview of Antenna TV's Sunday morning western block with The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin at 1pm, The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok at 2pm, and The Iron Horse at 3pm.
View more information on KTLA's preview of Antenna TV.
Awards season is heating up with Golden Globes and the WGA Awards, now we have another. The 17th Annual Screen Actor Guild Awards (SAG) nominees have been announced. Leading the pack were Modern Family, Glee, 30 Rock and Mad Men. Among the broadcast networks, NBC led with 6 nominations followed by ABC and Fox with 4 each. HBO led overall with 9 nominations. TV Land had its first ever nomination, with Hot in Cleveland getting a nomination along with star Betty White. The awards will air Sunday, Jan. 30, on TNT and TBS at 8 PM ET/PT.
Here are the main TV nominees:
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series
Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire, HBO)
Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad, AMC)
Michael C. Hall (Dexter, Showtime)
Jon Hamm (Mad Men, HBO)
Hugh Laurie (House, Fox)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
Glenn Close (Damages, FX)
Mariska Hargitay (Law & Order: SVU, NBC)
Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife, CBS)
Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men, AMC)
Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer, TNT)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series
Alec Baldwin (30 Rock, NBC)
Ty Burrell (Modern Family, ABC)
Steve Carrell (The Office, NBC)
Chris Colfer (Glee, Fox)
Ed O'Neill (Modern Family, ABC)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series
Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie, Showtime)
Tina Fey (30 Rock, NBC)
Jane Lynch (Glee, Fox)
Sofia Vergara (Modern Family, ABC)
Betty White (Hot in Cleveland, TV Land)
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
Boardwalk Empire (HBO)
The Closer (TNT)
Dexter (Showtime)
The Good Wife (CBS)
Mad Men (AMC)
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
30 Rock (NBC)
Glee (Fox)
Hot in Cleveland (TV Land)
Modern Family (ABC)
The Office (NBC)
View the complete TV portion nominees and to discuss the nominees!
Stay tuned either tomorrow or early next week for an interview with Me-TV Network! And of course tomorrow will bring news and our weekly look at the coming week's talk shows with sitcom stars as guests. Come on back!
We had the pleasure to once again interview Sean Compton, President of Programming for Tribune Broadcasting. Compton previously worked for Clear Channel radio for 16 years and was their VP Programming for 10 years before leaving in April 2008 to run Tribune programming as SVP, which includes the massive change for WGN America and now the creation of Antenna TV. Compton was promoted to President of Programming in May 2010. Compton also oversees programming for Tribune's local television stations and for WGN America. Compton is 36 years old and has worked in radio since he was in high school, and he also says his childhood hero was actually legendary NBC programmer Brandon Tartikoff. Compton is originally from Connersville, Indiana, which is between Indianapolis and Cincinnati, and he grew up watching those TV markets. See our previous interview with Sean back in 2008 regarding WGN America, when he brought back classic TV.
Antenna TV is a new digital network from Tribune Broadcasting that will debut on New Year's Day on multicast stations nationwide. 50 million homes will be reached in the first wave of clearances. Antenna TV starts broadcasting at midnight EST, on January 1, 2011 with more than 24 hours of The Three Stooges. The program lineup on Sunday, January 2, 2011 is built around a Benny Hill marathon. The network's regular programming schedule, featuring a combination of movies and classic television shows, include TV sitcoms All in the Family, Sanford and Son, The Nanny, Married...with Children, Maude, Good Times, Three's Company, The Partridge Family, Dennis the Menace, Too Close for Comfort, Father Knows Best and Burns & Allen begins on Monday, January 3, 2011. Legendary announcer Gary Owens is the voice of the channel.
"Seven Questions with Antenna TV's Sean Compton"
SitcomsOnline: First off, I have to say I am personally very excited for Antenna TV's Jan. 1 launch. Most of the series that Antenna TV will be airing are some of my favorites, including Three's Company. I have to ask, how did this idea come about and how was it made into a reality?
Antenna TV's Sean Compton: We looked around the television landscape and through the cable and broadcast universe all groups are trying to appeal to younger demos. This includes our own group with WGN America and its younger appeal with recent additions. TV Land used to own the space but has jumped deep into original programming and with the recent successes they will go deeper in original programming. We see it as a huge opportunity, This TV, the MGM movie channel, is free to over the air viewers 24 hours a day. The only over the air, all movie channel. Antenna TV will be a great over the air destination for some movies but primarily classic sitcoms. Three's Company is a big win for us, as it hasn't had much exposure on cable in many years yet still has a huge fan base. The Three Stooges appeals to every demo. Benny Hill is a riot and Married... with Children is a great late night show.
SitcomsOnline: This world of digital television is really fascinating. It has really opened up the doors for older series to air again. Still, many people out there don't have televisions without cable or satellite. Antenna TV is a free digital station, but many of the viewers will still rely on cable to watch it. We know Comcast Cable has picked it up in Chicago on channel 353, but what about the rest of the markets? Is Comcast the main cable provider for Antenna TV or will more providers also carry it?
Antenna TV's Sean Compton: Most of the markets will have a cable home for Antenna TV. If you live in a large city you should go out and buy an HD antenna anyway. I've got DirecTV and Comcast in my home and I also have rabbit ears so I can watch the dot 2 and dot 3 choices out there as well. It's starting to get interesting as broadcasters are getting their dot 2's and 3's cranked up and its going to get competitive.
SitcomsOnline: As of launch on Jan. 1, Antenna TV will be in 50 million homes (thanks to mainly the Tribune stations) including the top 5 markets, which is great. Are you close to sealing deals with stations in other top markets like San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston, Detroit and other markets like Louisville? We also hear that some markets already cleared will be getting sneak peek launches, like in Los Angeles. What will that be like?
Antenna TV's Sean Compton: The sneak peak is just some classic shows that will air on KTLA in Los Angeles to promote Antenna TV. There are a lot of OTA's (over the air) homes in Los Angeles and we want to tap into the KTLA audience and let them know it is coming. Regarding the other markets, we have signed a group deal with Local TV LLC. They own WJW in Cleveland, KDVR in Denver, WNEP in Wilkes Barre and many other markets. They are excited and sign on in early first quarter. There are other groups talking to us now and we have a number of offers for markets that we are working through now. There are a lot of affiliate interest for us out there, partially because we are committed to great programming. Zero paid programming, 24/7 movies and sitcoms. (View an Antenna TV promo!)
SitcomsOnline: The classic TV shows acquired by Antenna TV are either from Sony Pictures Television or DLT Entertainment. Does Antenna TV have an overall library deal with these studios or were these series specifically bought? If it is a library deal, can we expect schedule changes frequently with new additions? (Hoping for some Diff'rent Strokes, What's Happening Now!!, The Facts of Life, and other Sony greats.)
Antenna TV's Sean Compton: We did do an overall library deal. Jeff Wolf at Sony worked hard for several weeks putting this together with us. John Fitzgerald did the same for us at D.L. Taffner. You will see other shows weave in and out of the line-up over the next several years. Possibly we'll tap into other distributors for product as well.
SitcomsOnline: You previously mentioned to us that stunts and marathons will be done during the holidays. 2011 kicks-off with a marathon weekend of The Three Stooges and Benny Hill, but what else can we expect for other holidays later this year? I personally am hoping for a short-lived sitcom stunt one of these days, as Sony Pictures Television has plenty of short-lived, but good, series from the '70s and '80s. Among them are The Jeffersons spin-off Checking In, the Sanford & Son spin-offs Grady and Sanford Arms, the Who's the Boss? spin-off Living Dolls, and other short-lived fare such as One in a Million starring Shirley Hemphill, The Dumplings from Nicholl-Ross-West, Norman Lear's Hot L Baltimore, also Filthy Rich starring pre-Designing Women stars Dixier Carter & Delta Burke, and 704 Hauser, where a new family moves into the Bunker house from All in the Family.
Antenna TV's Sean Compton: We haven't thought it all through yet. Our big priority has been getting launched and affiliates set. As you know, I am a big fan of event programming. WGN America's Munster Mash on Halloween had monster, pun intended, ratings this past year. It is the third Halloween that we've aired it. We've done a 70's week, an 80's week, Valentine's Specials, etc. I imagine you'll see much of the same on Antenna TV especially around the holidays.
SitcomsOnline: Before we go further, I have to mention that Antenna TV will be airing two short-lived spin-offs on its schedule. The Three's Company spin-offs -- The Ropers and Three's a Crowd -- will be aired within Three's Company's hour timeslot (5pm-6pm and encores 12am-1am). That is very cool and to my knowledge, it never has been done. Back to questions, Antenna TV will also air movies, mainly during mornings and early afternoons. Will these films also be from specific studios and what are some of the films we can expect?
Antenna TV's Sean Compton: The films will come from the Columbia/Sony libraries. It's a very deep film library and prevents overlap from anything on This TV, which is fueled by the MGM library. I love Three's a Crowd and The Ropers (Three's Company spin-offs) being a part of the line-up. (Once the Ropers leave the Three's Company episodes, you'll see The Ropers scheduled in one of the half-hours, and later on Three's a Crowd in one of the half-hours after the final Three's Company episode airs.) They were solid spin-offs that at the time were short-lived and have had little exposure. Another show that I'm thrilled to have is Too Close for Comfort.
SitcomsOnline: Finally, it is really great Tribune is creating a network like this for the digital era. You have done a great job in preserving classic TV sitcoms first on Tribune's WGN America (where we previously interviewed you) and now with Tribune's Antenna TV. Will Antenna TV depend on Nielsen ratings like broadcast networks and cable networks? Or is the landscape different in digital substation world? Fans have also asked if these programs will be unedited or at least close to being unedited if there are less ads on digital substations?
Antenna TV's Sean Compton: Thank you for the kind words. We air the shows the way that the distributors supply us. We will do no editing on our end. We also will not be squeezing the end credits nor will we have an Antenna TV bug/logo on the screen during programming. Stations locally may decide to put theirs up, but nationally we will not display one. As far as ratings go, yes we will look at ratings but in the digital world it's driven a bit differently. The product we bought was done specifically to find opportunities. The Cosby Show, Cheers, Roseanne are on television in syndication and cable everyday, so we went after shows that haven't had the mass exposure in recent years. We won't live and die with this network by ratings in the first 2-3 years.
Our thanks to Sean Compton and Antenna TV. We wish them the best of luck on their launch on January 1! For more information on Antenna TV, continue to stay with us for info and don't forget to view their website http://www.antennatv.tv/. So, stay tuned right here on the blog for continued news and programming updates for this network.
Before we get to the rest of today's blog, we want to give you information on KTLA's preview of Antenna TV in Los Angeles that Sean talked about in our interview. In anticipation of this new programming, KTLA will broadcast a sneak peek of Antenna TV on its main channel, KTLA 5. Antenna TV is coming to KTLA's digital channel 5.2 in Los Angeles on January, 1 2011.
The first sneak peek will be this Saturday (Dec. 18) and will air from 2pm-5pm PT with an hour each of sitcoms Dennis the Menace, Father Knows Best and The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show. A few hours later in primetime on Saturday from 8-10pm PT, KTLA will air four episodes of Sanford & Son. Then on Sunday (Dec. 19), KTLA will give two episodes each of Gidget, Circus Boy, and The Monkees all starting at 9am PT. In late on Sunday, KTLA will air two hours of The Three Stooges from 11pm-1am with six classic episodes. And finally on Sunday, Dec. 26 KTLA will give LA fans a preview of Antenna TV's Sunday morning western block with The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin at 1pm, The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok at 2pm, and The Iron Horse at 3pm.
View more information on KTLA's preview of Antenna TV.
Awards season is heating up with Golden Globes and the WGA Awards, now we have another. The 17th Annual Screen Actor Guild Awards (SAG) nominees have been announced. Leading the pack were Modern Family, Glee, 30 Rock and Mad Men. Among the broadcast networks, NBC led with 6 nominations followed by ABC and Fox with 4 each. HBO led overall with 9 nominations. TV Land had its first ever nomination, with Hot in Cleveland getting a nomination along with star Betty White. The awards will air Sunday, Jan. 30, on TNT and TBS at 8 PM ET/PT.
Here are the main TV nominees:
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series
Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire, HBO)
Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad, AMC)
Michael C. Hall (Dexter, Showtime)
Jon Hamm (Mad Men, HBO)
Hugh Laurie (House, Fox)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
Glenn Close (Damages, FX)
Mariska Hargitay (Law & Order: SVU, NBC)
Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife, CBS)
Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men, AMC)
Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer, TNT)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series
Alec Baldwin (30 Rock, NBC)
Ty Burrell (Modern Family, ABC)
Steve Carrell (The Office, NBC)
Chris Colfer (Glee, Fox)
Ed O'Neill (Modern Family, ABC)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series
Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie, Showtime)
Tina Fey (30 Rock, NBC)
Jane Lynch (Glee, Fox)
Sofia Vergara (Modern Family, ABC)
Betty White (Hot in Cleveland, TV Land)
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
Boardwalk Empire (HBO)
The Closer (TNT)
Dexter (Showtime)
The Good Wife (CBS)
Mad Men (AMC)
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
30 Rock (NBC)
Glee (Fox)
Hot in Cleveland (TV Land)
Modern Family (ABC)
The Office (NBC)
View the complete TV portion nominees and to discuss the nominees!
Stay tuned either tomorrow or early next week for an interview with Me-TV Network! And of course tomorrow will bring news and our weekly look at the coming week's talk shows with sitcom stars as guests. Come on back!
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Antenna TV Launch Schedule Starting January 2011; Chiller Acquires Buffy
We mentioned back in early September that Tribune is launching Antenna TV in January 2011, but now we have the FULL launch schedule! Before we get to the schedule, I'll remind you once again what Antenna TV is. Tribune Broadcasting's Antenna TV is a classic television and general entertainment movie network to air as a digital multicast on Tribune's broadcast stations. Tribune markets include New York's WPIX, Los Angeles' KTLA and Chicago's local WGN. The Chicago affiliate for Antenna TV will be WGN-DT 9.2. Antenna TV will also be offered for national distribution to non-Tribune stations, such as in Cleveland, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, and Milwaukee. View the full list of affiliates thus far on the Antenna TV website.
Moving on to the schedule, the digital station will launch on January 1, 2011 rather than the previously announced Jan. 3 -- so two days earlier! On January 1, 2011 there will be a New Year's Day marathon of first episodes! We'll have a schedule for that soon. The regular weekday schedule will have movies start the day off starting at 5am. Then sitcoms will take over from 1pm-1am. A black and white sitcom block from the '50s & '60s will start things off (originally these sitcoms were slated for overnight) with two episodes of Burns & Allen in the 1pm hour. At 2pm it will be Hazel, followed by The Farmer's Daughter. In the 3pm hour, it will be two more all-time classics, Father Knows Best and Dennis the Menace. Oh Mr. Wilson, indeed! Then we head into the '70s until 10pm, with an hour each of hit comedies. At 4pm, c'mon and get happy because it's an hour of The Partridge Family. At 5pm, back-to-back slapstick episodes of Three's Company will air, but Mon-Thurs only. The two spin-offs, The Ropers and Three's a Crowd, will be included in the rotation! How so? When the Ropers move to their new house after episode 52 ("An Anniversary Surprise"), you'll see episodes of The Ropers in the second half-hour until it finishes its 28 episode run and then we get back to Three's Company in this half-hour (the first half-hour will remain Three's Company, of course). Then later when Three's Company finishes its 172 episode run, all 22 episodes of Three's a Crowd will air, likely in the first half-hour, while the second half-hour will start with Three's Company from the beginning. It's a nice and unique way of scheduling these spin-offs and all fans will be pleased for sure!
Anyway, back to the weekday line-up, Fridays in this 5pm hour will be two episodes of the Ted Knight sitcom Too Close for Comfort. Then Mon-Sat in the 6pm hour its two episodes of Bea Arthur's Maude. In the weekday 7pm hour, we get back-to-back dyno-mite episodes of Good Times. The primetime line-up from 8pm-12am will air Sun-Thurs, with an hour each of Sanford & Son, All in the Family, Married...with Children and The Nanny. At 12am, Mon-Thurs will see more of Three's Company with the two spin-offs mixed in like they will be at 5pm. Too Close for Comfort will air in the 12am hour on Sunday nights. From 1am-5am more movies will air on Sun-Thurs.
Fridays and Saturdays will see a block of Three Stooges and Benny Hill in primetime. On Fridays, Three Stooges will air from 8pm-11pm and on Saturdays it will air from 11pm-2am. Meanwhile, the British comedy Benny Hill will air from 11pm-2am on Fridays and 8pm-11pm on Saturdays. The Monkees will air on both Fridays and Saturday nights in the 2am hour following this block and then a movie at 3am.
On weekend mornings and afternoons, we also have some variations. A movie starts both days off at 5am, followed by children's programming on Saturdays from 7am-1pm such as Totally Tooned In and classic Columbia westerns on Sundays such as Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. Sitcoms follow at 1pm, with Too Close for Comfort on Saturdays and Here Come the Brides on Sundays in the hour. Then both days will be the same from 2pm-6pm with an hour each of Gidget, The Flying Nun, The Monkees and The Partridge Family. As we mentioned earlier, Maude airs at 6pm, like it does Mon-Fri, but on Sundays we get Good Times in the 6pm hour. At 7pm, we get Archie Bunker and family in All in the Family on Saturdays and Too Close for Comfort on Sundays. The rest of the weekend line-up we mentioned earlier.
All of these shows are from Sony Pictures Television or DLT Entertainment. They will be adding in series frequently from these libraries, so stay tuned. We will certainly have more information on this network as we get closer to the launch. We will let you know what the first day will feature on Jan. 1 with classic first episodes, when we get the highlights. For now, you might want to take a look at a video preview of this network and browse their website for affiliate information.
View and discuss Antenna TV's launch schedule. Keep it right here as always for news and information on this network. We will be the first to announce anything, I'm sure!
Moving on to other news, fueled by skyrocketing ratings, significantly younger audience and a major expansion of programming featuring its first original movie (The Passenger) and first original special (Chiller 13: The Decade's Scariest Movie Moments) Chiller today announced a creative redesign effective October 27 in time for Halloween! Chiller is introducing a new logo and on-air look, embracing its tagline, Scary Good.
Joss Whedon's iconic Emmy Award-winning Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which starred Sarah Michelle Gellar and aired on The WB/UPN from 1997-2003, will join the Chiller schedule Sunday, November 7, beginning with a 24-hour marathon at 6AM (ET/PT). On Monday, November 8, the series will assume its regular time slot weekdays at 6PM and 7PM (along with 7am & 8am) (ET/PT). There will be a Thanksgiving Day marathon as well starting at 6am. And the series will remain on Viacom's LOGO as well.
Starting this December, Chiller's programming will be boosted by its first ever original special, Chiller 13: The Decade's Scariest Movie Moments, a countdown special featuring pop culture mavens and horror movie experts looking back on the top scary movie moments of the past 10 years. Chiller's very first original movie The Passenger, based on the novella by best-selling author Jack Ketchum, is slated to premiere in Spring 2011.
Various other series air on weekdays at different times like Monsters, Millenium, Dark Shadows, Twilight Zone, Night Visions, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, Freddy's Nightmares, Forever Knight, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, Poltergeist: The Legacy, Friday the 13th and more. Saturday in primetime has Fear Factor, while Sundays has Masters of Horror.
Moving on to the schedule, the digital station will launch on January 1, 2011 rather than the previously announced Jan. 3 -- so two days earlier! On January 1, 2011 there will be a New Year's Day marathon of first episodes! We'll have a schedule for that soon. The regular weekday schedule will have movies start the day off starting at 5am. Then sitcoms will take over from 1pm-1am. A black and white sitcom block from the '50s & '60s will start things off (originally these sitcoms were slated for overnight) with two episodes of Burns & Allen in the 1pm hour. At 2pm it will be Hazel, followed by The Farmer's Daughter. In the 3pm hour, it will be two more all-time classics, Father Knows Best and Dennis the Menace. Oh Mr. Wilson, indeed! Then we head into the '70s until 10pm, with an hour each of hit comedies. At 4pm, c'mon and get happy because it's an hour of The Partridge Family. At 5pm, back-to-back slapstick episodes of Three's Company will air, but Mon-Thurs only. The two spin-offs, The Ropers and Three's a Crowd, will be included in the rotation! How so? When the Ropers move to their new house after episode 52 ("An Anniversary Surprise"), you'll see episodes of The Ropers in the second half-hour until it finishes its 28 episode run and then we get back to Three's Company in this half-hour (the first half-hour will remain Three's Company, of course). Then later when Three's Company finishes its 172 episode run, all 22 episodes of Three's a Crowd will air, likely in the first half-hour, while the second half-hour will start with Three's Company from the beginning. It's a nice and unique way of scheduling these spin-offs and all fans will be pleased for sure!
Anyway, back to the weekday line-up, Fridays in this 5pm hour will be two episodes of the Ted Knight sitcom Too Close for Comfort. Then Mon-Sat in the 6pm hour its two episodes of Bea Arthur's Maude. In the weekday 7pm hour, we get back-to-back dyno-mite episodes of Good Times. The primetime line-up from 8pm-12am will air Sun-Thurs, with an hour each of Sanford & Son, All in the Family, Married...with Children and The Nanny. At 12am, Mon-Thurs will see more of Three's Company with the two spin-offs mixed in like they will be at 5pm. Too Close for Comfort will air in the 12am hour on Sunday nights. From 1am-5am more movies will air on Sun-Thurs.
Fridays and Saturdays will see a block of Three Stooges and Benny Hill in primetime. On Fridays, Three Stooges will air from 8pm-11pm and on Saturdays it will air from 11pm-2am. Meanwhile, the British comedy Benny Hill will air from 11pm-2am on Fridays and 8pm-11pm on Saturdays. The Monkees will air on both Fridays and Saturday nights in the 2am hour following this block and then a movie at 3am.
On weekend mornings and afternoons, we also have some variations. A movie starts both days off at 5am, followed by children's programming on Saturdays from 7am-1pm such as Totally Tooned In and classic Columbia westerns on Sundays such as Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. Sitcoms follow at 1pm, with Too Close for Comfort on Saturdays and Here Come the Brides on Sundays in the hour. Then both days will be the same from 2pm-6pm with an hour each of Gidget, The Flying Nun, The Monkees and The Partridge Family. As we mentioned earlier, Maude airs at 6pm, like it does Mon-Fri, but on Sundays we get Good Times in the 6pm hour. At 7pm, we get Archie Bunker and family in All in the Family on Saturdays and Too Close for Comfort on Sundays. The rest of the weekend line-up we mentioned earlier.
All of these shows are from Sony Pictures Television or DLT Entertainment. They will be adding in series frequently from these libraries, so stay tuned. We will certainly have more information on this network as we get closer to the launch. We will let you know what the first day will feature on Jan. 1 with classic first episodes, when we get the highlights. For now, you might want to take a look at a video preview of this network and browse their website for affiliate information.
View and discuss Antenna TV's launch schedule. Keep it right here as always for news and information on this network. We will be the first to announce anything, I'm sure!
Moving on to other news, fueled by skyrocketing ratings, significantly younger audience and a major expansion of programming featuring its first original movie (The Passenger) and first original special (Chiller 13: The Decade's Scariest Movie Moments) Chiller today announced a creative redesign effective October 27 in time for Halloween! Chiller is introducing a new logo and on-air look, embracing its tagline, Scary Good.
Joss Whedon's iconic Emmy Award-winning Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which starred Sarah Michelle Gellar and aired on The WB/UPN from 1997-2003, will join the Chiller schedule Sunday, November 7, beginning with a 24-hour marathon at 6AM (ET/PT). On Monday, November 8, the series will assume its regular time slot weekdays at 6PM and 7PM (along with 7am & 8am) (ET/PT). There will be a Thanksgiving Day marathon as well starting at 6am. And the series will remain on Viacom's LOGO as well.
Starting this December, Chiller's programming will be boosted by its first ever original special, Chiller 13: The Decade's Scariest Movie Moments, a countdown special featuring pop culture mavens and horror movie experts looking back on the top scary movie moments of the past 10 years. Chiller's very first original movie The Passenger, based on the novella by best-selling author Jack Ketchum, is slated to premiere in Spring 2011.
Various other series air on weekdays at different times like Monsters, Millenium, Dark Shadows, Twilight Zone, Night Visions, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, Freddy's Nightmares, Forever Knight, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, Poltergeist: The Legacy, Friday the 13th and more. Saturday in primetime has Fear Factor, while Sundays has Masters of Horror.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Comcast's TubeTime Brings Back Diff'rent Strokes, What's Happening; WGN Acquires American Gladiators Revivial Reruns
TubeTime still has Facts of Life, Three Stooges, Gidget, Larry Sanders Show and Sanford & Son on their service, too. So fans of those series, not to worry...they will remain. It looks like since we last reported, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Who's the Boss?, One Day at a Time, and Silver Spoons are off the service for now. For those wondering Facts of Life episodes are currently in the sixth season on TubeTime, while Three Stooges are in the fourth season, Gidget at the end of the first season, Larry Sanders Show is in the second season, and as is Sanford & Son. Let's hope they get to season three of Diff'rent Strokes quickly, since starting with that season it is not on DVD yet. What's Happening!! is already complete on DVD, so it would have been better if it was follow-up series What's Happening Now!! instead, since only one season of that is on DVD. In addition to that, I'm hoping the following pop-up on TubeTime in the future: Dennis the Menace, Sanford, Benson, 227, Archie Bunker's Place, Maude, and hoping some return like Silver Spoons. Maybe wishful thinking on some? TubeTime only provides Sony owned series to Comcast.
WGN America has acquired reruns of the revival of American Gladiators that aired on NBC last year. The series will air Thursday nights at 9pm ET starting Thursday, June 25. American Gladiators will follow WWE Superstars on Thursday nights and that should finally give WGN America a good companion to WWE Superstars.
In other schedule news, Around the World for Free will wrap up its season on Monday, June 22, then a series of specials will air in July on Mondays at 9pm ET titled Lance Burton, Master Magician. Once that wraps, a second rerun of AFV will return on Monday nights. The special ASA Action Sports World Tour will air at 9pm ET on Thursday, July 9 (that will shift American Gladiators to Wednesday at 9pm ET for that week only).
And as for classic TV, there will be plenty of it this fall and we will get to that soon! One hint is one show that airs on the network will be celebrating an anniversary, and WGN America will air an anniversary marathon! We will tell you that soon! So keep checking back!
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Comcast onDemand's TubeTime Adds More Series, Removes Some; Comcast onDemand's TheWB Adds More; Scrubs Returns Tonight
Sticking with more Comcast onDemand news...a few weeks ago we told you that Comcast has added TheWB onDemand channel to its onDemand service. They launched with Warner Bros. owned series Martin, All of Us, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper and Jack & Bobby. More episodes of those shows are added each week, and this week they added three more series to the onDemand channel! Three dramas from this decade have been added: One Tree Hill, The O.C., and Veronica Mars. The first 5 or 6 episodes of those were added, while the existing series are now up to the first 8 episodes. So far they seem to be skewing with the newer series, with Mr. Cooper and Martin as their oldest series. Hopefully they add more sitcoms, and more from the past. Some shows hat would be perfect for this service would be Alice, Perfect Strangers, Hogan Family, Head of the Class, Welcome Back Kotter Gilligan's Island, and Chico and the Man. Just my thoughts. All of those are not seen anywhere nationally. Hopefully some of those will come soon. We'll let you know if we get further updates.
Just a reminder that Scrubs returns for an all-new season, its eighth season, tonight at 9pm with two back-to-back episodes...on ABC! I saw both episodes last month, and they were pretty funny, especially the first one...check out my comments. I was never big on this show but did watch a handful of episodes in the past.
Also premiering tonight leading into Scrubs at 8pm ET will be Homeland Security USA, a look at how the Homeland Security Division does its job. It is pretty interesting. I also saw that premiere a few weeks back and I think many will like it also...check out my comments.
Finally, I have to mention this because I'm from the town, but Primetime: What Would You Do? returns tonight at 10pm on ABC and will feature my town of Linden, NJ! I am so actually excited. What Would You Do? explores how people react when they witness blatant racial discrimination. In this scenario, Latino men and women attempt to place an order in broken English at All Aboard Bagel and Deli in downtown Linden, NJ. But their requests are met by extreme prejudice from the cashier. Hidden cameras capture how customers respond to the scenario. Find out what happens tonight at 10pm.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Happy 4th of July...Marathon Time; Sci Fi Channel Schedule Updates
If you're staying indoors to beat the heat, then there are some marathons on TV for you!
Sci Fi will bring its Twilight Zone 4th of July marathon once again. It actually started Thursday and will run until early Saturday morning! TNT has what else, an all-day Law & Order marathon starting at 8am. USA has a JAG and the spin-off NCIS marathon starting at 10am until 11pm. TV Land has quite a few marathons, starting with original series She's Got The Look from 9am-2pm, followed by the classic sitcom I Love Lucy from 2pm-7pm and again from 1am-2pm the next day, followed by Hogan's Heroes on Saturday from 2pm-7pm and again Sunday from 1am-4pm. They will also run the movies National Lampoon's Vacation and National Lampoon's European Vacation this weekend. BET launches The Steve Harvey Show this weekend with hour slots from 4-5pm all weekend. FX will be king of the hill this 4th of July with a King of the Hill marathon from 9am-6pm. Encore Westerns will launch Maverick at high noon until midnight, pardners. ABC Family will launch That '70s Show with a marathon from 11am-7:30pm, leading into a Harry Potter weekend.
If you like more movies, TBS has some action movies starting at 10am while Lifetime brings Christmas to July with holiday movies starting at 9am. Fox Movie Channel will air an all day marathon of ID4, that's Independence Day starring Will Smith. Spike TV also has some movies on tap.
If you're in the Los Angeles, CA area, KTLA will air a cool sitcom marathon. Hang out and hang ten with the California surfer chick Gidget in The 4th of July Gidget Marathon on Friday, July 4 from 10am-3pm PT. Surfs up!
Other marathons include Dirty Jobs on Discovery Channel, Predator related documentaries on MSNBC, Cheaters on G4, Comedy Central Presents on Comedy Central, America's Next Top Model on MTV, Chowder on Cartoon Network, Paranormal State on A&E, I Love New York on VH1, Family Reunion on TV One, Raw Nature on Animal Planet, What Not To Wear on TLC, The Next Food Network Star on Food Network, The Revolution on History, and more. Some weird stuff.
We mentioned like two months ago or so that Sci Fi Channel has struck a deal with CBS Paramount to air many shows. As you all know, Star Trek: The Next Generation has already started airing in a block on Mondays starting at 7pm. Slowly other shows will be incorporated. The should haven never been canceled drama Joan of Arcadia starring Amber Tamblyn, Joe Mantegna, Mary Steenburgen, and Jason Ritter is coming to Sci Fi next Friday (July 11) airing Fridays at 8PM. That is a nice tribute to the series, as the show originally aired Fridays at 8PM on CBS for its two seasons. Then in August, the drama series The Sentinel will be airing in the daytime rotation marathon (10am-4pm) in many spots starting in August. And in September, the drama Seven Days will get the weekday treatment, airing weekdays at 4pm starting September 2. So far no other news on the Paramount shows like Mork & Mindy and Highlander, but stay tuned, as soon as we know, we will post!
In other Sci Fi news, Lost reruns will air Mondays 7-11pm starting September 15, which means Star Trek: The Next Generation will be on the move to Tuesdays at 7pm.
Enjoy the fireworks and don't forget to come on back tomorrow to see the blog!
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Thursday, September 17
Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage - "Bitin’, Spankin’ and a Load of Yankee Psychobabble" (CBS, 10:30PM ET/PT) (Repeat)
Georgie and Mandy get upset when Audrey disciplines CeeCee without their permission.
Adults - "C Alert" (FX and FXX, 9:00PM ET/PT)
Anton makes a rare mistake at work, and Issa steps up to help him fix it.
Adults - "Vote for Paul Baker" (FX and FXX, 9:34PM ET/PT)
Paul Baker runs for president of the Homeowners Association, and into an uncertain future.
Sitcom Stars on Talk Shows (Week of September 14)
Thursday, September 17
- Sarah Paulson (Leap of Faith) - Catch Sarah on Jimmy Kimmel Live! at 11:35pm on ABC.
- Rory Scovel (Grace and Frankie/Robbie/Ground Floor) - Rory appears on Jimmy Kimmel Live! at 11:35pm on ABC.
- Lili Reinhart (Surviving Jack) - Lili is a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon at 11:35pm on NBC.
- Mary Beth Barone (Overcompensating) - Mary appears on a repeat of Late Night with Seth Meyers at 12:36am on NBC.
- William Jackson Harper (The Good Place) - William talks about American Hostage on NBC's Today in the 10am hour.
- Paul Walter Hauser (The Afterparty) - NBC's Tody catches up with Paul in the 9am hour.
- Wynn Everett (Chad Powers) - Wynn talks about Chad Powers on ABC's Good Morning America sometime between 7-9am and on ABC's GMA 3: What You Need to Know at 1pm.
- Terry Crews (Brooklyn Nine-Nine/Are We There Yet?/Everybody Hates Chris) - Rebecca Crews welcomes Tamron into her home for an intimate look at her life with Parkinson’s, sharing an update on her treatment, recovery and how the diagnosis has changed her priorities. Then, Rebecca takes us inside her fashion line and opens up about finding purpose through design. Her husband, Terry, and children join her to share what it’s like being part of her journey. Plus, Rebecca opens up about her faith and the next chapter of her ministry, Sonic Sunday, on Tamron Hall, so check your local listings.
- Alan Cumming (Schmigadoon!) - Alan stops by the studio to chat about The Traitors: New Blood on Live with Kelly and Mark, so check your local listings.
New on DVD and Blu-ray
01/20/26 - The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Golden Age Collection (Blu-ray)
01/27/26 - The New Fred and Barney Show - The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
02/11/26 - Tom and Jerry - The Complete CinemaScope Collection (Blu-ray)
03/24/26 - Looney Tunes Collector's Vault - Volume 2 (Blu-ray)
04/11/26 - Abbott Elementary - The Complete Fourth Season (DVD)
04/21/26 - Famous Studios Champion Collection (Blu-ray) (DVD)
05/19/26 - I Love Lucy - The Complete Series - 75th Anniversary Edition (DVD)
05/19/26 - Looney Tunes Cartoons - The Complete Series (Blu-ray) (DVD)
06/16/26 - Difficult People - The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
06/30/26 - Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines - The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
07/14/26 - The Office - The Complete Series - Superfan Extended Episodes (Blu-ray)
07/28/26 - The Bill Dana Show - The Complete Series (DVD)
07/28/26 - I Love Lucy - The Complete Series - 75th Anniversary Edition (Blu-ray)
07/28/26 - The Paper - Season One (Blu-ray) (DVD)
08/25/26 - Perfect Strangers - The Complete Series (Blu-ray) (DVD)
09/08/26 - Looney Tunes Collector's Vault - Volume 3 (Blu-ray)
09/22/26 - Bridget Loves Bernie - The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
10/20/26 - The Quick Draw McGraw Show - The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
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