Coronavirus sacks “Jeopardy”, “Wheel” live studio audiences

Decision made after epidemic spreads across globe; Chicago film studio also affected Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 4 p.m. on March 10.  The coronavirus epidemic has affected sporting events, large gatherings, canceled trade shows (including four at McCormick Place) and other places around the world. Now, it is affecting tapings of television shows. Late Monday evening, the producers […]

“Jeopardy!”: A case of a successful game show

  A: This show has been a successful story for 35 years – even before Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer came on the scene. Q: What is Jeopardy? In 1983, King World was looking to pair something with its already red-hot Wheel of Fortune, an NBC daytime game show debuted in evening syndication and became a smash hit. So they […]

Whitney Houston dies

Six-time Grammy-award winning artist Whitney Houston was found dead Saturday afternoon in a hotel room in the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles. She was 48 years old. The cause of death has yet to be determined. Whitney Houston burst onto the scene with her breakout debut album Whitney Houston, which produced three number one hits. Houston also set chart […]

WLS-TV to replace "Oprah" with live, local morning show

In news first reported Tuesday morning on Robert Feder’s blog at Vocalo, ABC-owned WLS-TV has announced plans to replace The Oprah Winfrey Show, which departs first-run syndication on September 9, 2011: The station is developing a live, local morning show to take her place. There is no word yet on a host or format, but it is expected to be […]

Merv Griffin dies

The legendary former talk-show host and producer, who basically put first-run syndication on the map with Dance Fever, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy!, has died at the age of 82, due to a bout with prostate cancer. Mr. Griffin was a bandleader, singer, TV star, and a performer at KFRC-AM San Francisco before he became involved in the backside of […]

Let’s Play Crosswords

And that’s what Program Partners, Merv Griffin, and the William Morris Agency will do this fall as five NBC O&O’s have agreed to clear the new game show for next fall. The stations are: WNBC-TV New York, KNBC-TV Los Angeles, WMAQ-TV Chicago, KNTV San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, and KXAS-TV Dallas. NBC Universal will sell the barter time within the program. (That’s […]