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Tag Archives: ABC
Disney-ABC to cancel ‘At the Movies,’ Siskel and Ebert’s old show
“At the Movies” is fading to black after 24 seasons.
The cancellation will bring down the curtain on the Chicago-based nationally syndicated TV showcase for dueling film critics that traced its lineage to WTTW-Ch. 11′s mid-1970s pairing of the Chicago Sun-Times’ Roger Ebert and Tribune’s Gene Siskel.
Disney-ABC Domestic Television and ABC Media Productions finally yelled cut Wednesday, announcing the final show with current reviewers Michael Phillips of the Tribune and A.O. Scott of the New York Times will air the weekend of Aug. 14. It was anything but a surprise ending.
The plug nearly was pulled last year after one season with poorly received Ben Lyons of E! Entertainment Television and Ben Mankiewicz of Turner Classic Movies in the critics’ chairs.
That pairing was installed in a misguided bid to bring a new sensibility to the program, following a bitter divorce from Ebert and Richard Roeper, the Sun-Times colleague Ebert picked to succeed Siskel after Siskel’s 1999 death from a brain tumor at age 53.
Instead, last August, just weeks before the new TV season, Disney-ABC announced it had hired Phillips and Scott. Respected print reviewers, they were a throwback to the tradition and standards of Ebert, Siskel and Roeper. But their earnest, sometimes bookish approach — a sharp contrast to the slick, too often superficial approach of Lyons in particular — failed to restore the viewership the two Bens squandered.
“To their credit,” Phillips said Wednesday night, Disney-ABC “never tried to make us anything we weren’t.”
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Beauty Queen Suing ABC, Disney Claiming Wife Swap Ruined Her Life
New York teenager Alicia Guastafarro said being portrayed as a pouting pageant princess on ABC’s Wife Swap destroyed her life, and wants the network and Disney to cough up $100 million to make up for it.
RadarOnline.com has learned that Guastafarro, 18, is suing the show and its’ parent companies, claiming she was subject to “incessant verbal and physical assaults from her peers” after her appearance on the program, which focuses on the culture clash that ensues when two random families swap mothers.
Guastafarro, an ex-beauty queen, said many of her scenes were scripted to paint her in a negative light, making her recite lines such as “I am the most popular girl in school,” and “I do feel sorry for people that are not gorgeous people.”
Guastafarro said she received so much “ridicule, mockery and derision” from her peers, she had to finish high school in a special program.
Disney and Cablevision Take ABC Fight Public
The Walt Disney Company and Cablevision each told viewers to take a side — their side — on Tuesday in a brewing battle over distribution payments that are increasingly seen as vital for television broadcasters.
Talks were halted Monday night between Disney, the owner of the ABC network, and Cablevision, the cable television provider for about three million households in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
The signal for ABC’s New York station, WABC, has been retransmitted, essentially free, by Cablevision for decades, but Cablevision said Tuesday that ABC now wanted $40 million a year, or about $1 a month for each subscriber. Asked about the $1 figure, Kevin Brockman, executive vice president for communications for the Disney-ABC Television Group, said “that is absolutely, categorically not true and Cablevision knows it.” Mr. Brockman declined to say what price Disney was seeking.
Cablevision has countered with an offer of roughly 25 cents, another person briefed on the talks said. The people requested anonymity because the parties involved consider the talks private.
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Photo from blog.zap2it.com
Disney’s ABC may drop from Cablevision over fees
Walt Disney Co’s (DIS.N) ABC network threatened on Monday to drop its programs from Cablevision (CVC.N) in a dispute over fees, similar to an impasse between Fox and Time Warner Cable Inc (TWC.N) that was resolved earlier this year.
ABC said it would begin running on-air messages to Cablevision subscribers from Monday night to warn them they may no longer have access to the station from Sunday, March 7.
It said the company had tried to negotiate with Cablevision for the past two years, and would not continue offering its content without appropriate compensation.
“We can no longer sit back and allow Cablevision to use our shows for free while they continue to charge their customers for them,” Rebecca S. Campbell, president and general manager of ABC’s WABC-TV, said in a statement.
ABC’s shows include Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, and Desperate Housewives as well as news programs like Good Morning America.
Cablevision said the company was urging ABC not to pull the plug and instead work to negotiate an agreement.
“It is shocking that in these difficult economic times, ABC Disney is threatening to remove WABC unless Cablevision and its customers pay $40 million in new fees for programming that it offers today for free, both over-the-air and online,” said Charles Schueler, executive vice president of communications and community relations at Cablevision.
Fox and Time Warner, which had similarly disagreed over how much the cable service provider should pay for the right to carry the network, reached a deal on Jan. 1 to avoid a blackout after months of negotiations.
The Cast of ABC New Season of “Dancing with the Stars” is HOT!
Big news today! ABC has released the cast of the upcoming season of Dancing with the Stars. The cast chosen is HOT and is full of a lot of gorgeous A listed celebrities. The cast was announced last night during the season finale of “The Bachelor.”
Here is the list of celebs:
Buzz Aldrin, 80, astronaut
Pam Anderson, 42, actress/Playboy star
Erin Andrews, 31, ESPN reporter
Shannen Doherty, 38, actress
Kate Gosselin, 34, reality TV mom
Evan Lysacek, 24, Olympic gold medal skater
Niecy Nash, 40, Reno 911! actress
Chad Ochocinco, 32, NFL star
Jake Pavelka, 32, The Bachelor
Aiden Turner, 33, All My Children actor
Nicole Scherzinger, 31, Pussycat Doll
I will be honest I am seriously thinking about watching it. I have never seen it before, nor do I watch that many reality type shows. But with a cast like that can you blame me..rawr!
The celebrities will begin training with their professional partners as the teams prepare to hit the dance floor on the “Dancing With the Stars” two-hour season premiere Monday, March 22 at 8 p.m. ET.
USA Today has some great coverage:
We wanted a cast that had impact — we needed every single name to pop,” says Deena Katz, Stars‘ chief celebrity wrangler. ABC revealed the cast on Monday’s season finale of The Bachelor— including bachelor Jake Pavelka.
Stars averaged 18.2 million viewers last season, a 13% drop from Season 8′s 20.2 million, hurt by a lackluster cast and Fox rival So You Think You Can Dance. “We learned some lessons,” says executive producer Conrad Green. “This is definitely up there with the strongest casts ever.”
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Photo from etonline.com
What do you think of the list of celebs? Are you gonna watch this season?
Let me know in the comment section below.
