“Live From Darryl’s House” to rock WGN

In a continuing bid to add to their programming slate, Trifecta Entertainment & Media announced Friday it was launching Live From Darryl’s House as a weekly half-hour syndicated series this fall after a successful New Year’s Eve airing on WGN-TV in Chicago and on WGN America.

Trifecta has cleared Live From Darryl’s House on WGN and six other Tribune stations, including WPIX/New York, KTLA/Los Angeles, WPHL/Philadelphia, KDAF/Dallas, KIAH/Houston, KCPQ-KJZQ/Seattle, and KRCW/Portland, Ore. While not specified, it is likely the series will land in late fringe weekend time periods. It is not yet known if the series will be seen on WGN America.

The show is culled from Daryl Hall’s web series, where he jams with several well-known musicians for the pure enjoyment of making music. Artists who have appeared on the show include Smokey Robinson, Jose Feliciano, Train, Todd Rundgren, and Rob Thomas (the Matchbox Twenty lead singer, not the creator of Veronica Mars.)

The arrival of Live From Darryl’s House and the launch of Litton Entertainment’s Direct Access with Big Tigger marks a return of music-related programming to the syndication business in years. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, music-related programming was commonplace in first-run in weekend time periods with series such as Soul Train, It’s Showtime At The Apollo, and Solid Gold, among others. In the last few years, this type of programming has been pushed out in favor of off-network drama repeats and paid programming (ironically, Trifecta briefly took over syndication of Soul Train in 2007 and 2008 after the closure of Tribune Entertainment.)

Despite the cancellation of American Idol Rewind and deciding not to launch music-talent contest One in a Million, Trifecta is pushing ahead with more projects, including  a new dating strip in syndication called Geek Meets Girl for this fall, continuing to distribute off-cable shows including Punk’d and Cold Case Files, and started selling movie packages from Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks Entertainment (titles released before September 2005) to local stations and to This TV.

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