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Tuesday, August 7, 2007
8/7: Wheel/Jeopardy moving
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The two most popular syndicated game shows for the past couple of decades, “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy” are finding new homes starting Sept. 10 on WATL-TV (My ATL TV)
Currently, “Jeopardy” is on at 4:30 p.m. on WXIA-TV and “Wheel” is on at 7:30 p.m. on the same station. Starting Sept. 10, “Wheel” will be on WATL at 7 followed by “Jeopardy” at 7:30.
For “Jeopardy” fans who work 9 to 5, this is great news. The show used to be paired with “Wheel” on WXIA but when WXIA added a 7 p.m. local newscast four years ago, “Jeopardy” got bumped to 4:30. “Jeopardy” ratings have been relatively poor in that time slot, a distant third this past May behind WSB-TV’s “Oprah” and WAGA-TV’s “Divorce Court.”
“Wheel” has done well at 7:30 p.m., finishing a solid second behind WSB-TV’s “Entertainment Tonight.”
This move helps pair the two game shows back to back again, which is common across the nation. And there are more eyeballs at 7 to 8 p.m. than 4 to 5 p.m.
The two stations are both owned by Gannett so this is not a case of poaching. In fact, it’s more a case of Gannett trying to help out WATL, which had been one of the most popular WB affiliates in the country until the WB merged with UPN a year ago to become the CW. Locally, the UPN affiliate grabbed the new network, home to “The Gilmore Girls” and “America’s Next Top Model,” and left WATL without a primetime schedule.
When Fox offered up its “My Network TV” packed with telenovelas, WATL grabbed it more out of default than anything else, but for the past year, ratings have been abysmal. This fall, My Network is mixing reality shows with ultimate fighting and movies.
In other changes at the two networks next month:
Entertainment news show “The Insider” will move to the 7:30 p.m. slot on WXIA-TV, competing head to head with WSB’s “Entertainment Tonight.”
WATL has been airing a double helping of “The Simpsons” at 7, but starting Sept. 10, those episodes will move to 11 p.m., bumping back “Friends” and “Everybody Loves Raymond” to after midnight.
On WXIA-TV, there are several other changes in the offing. A fourth hour of the “Today” show at 10 a.m. weekdays bumps “Martha Stewart” to 2 p.m. “Passions” will no longer air on the NBC affiliate. “Millionaire” will now get a double shot at 4 and 4:30 p.m. and at 12:30 p.m., Merv Griffin’s new “Crosswords” game will debut.
WATL has been airing the cancelled “The Greg Behrendt Show” at 2 p.m. But next month, Greg will be replaced by Jerry Springer’s security officer Steve Wilkos. That is not a typo.
I’ll post upcoming changes later on WAGA-TV and WGCL-TV and the new WPCH-TV, which is effectively replacing WTBS-TV (a separate TBS channel will pop up if you have a cable or satellite service.).
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8/7: An hour with Randy & Spiff
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For 17 years, Randy & Spiff worked music radio, first two oldies station (Fox and Cool) followed by a brief stint at Lite 94.9. All three stations died but the pair have survived. Their peak popularity coincided with Fox’s reign as the oldies station in the early 1990s when that format was most commercially viable.
A few months ago, the pair segued to news/talk on 640/WGST-AM, a very different medium. I listened to an hour this morning for those of you who have yet to discover them on the AM dial to give you a taste of what it’s like. The audience’s expectations are far different and they don’t have Beatles and Supremes songs as cushions as they did on the other stations.
While Spiff is the quipmaster as always and Randy remains the man who controls the clock, the focus is on news, with four traffic/weather breaks per hour. Between 7:40 and 9 a.m., they squeezed in six different interviews talking about airlines, the Braves, taxes, politics, Barry Bonds and movies. It’s quite packed. They also had 22 ads (not counting WGST promos) over the specific hour I tracked but most were 30 seconds or less. I’d say they had about 15 to 17 minutes of paid ads during the hour, which isn’t that bad for news/talk.
Here’s a breakdown of what happened between 7:49 a.m. and 8:49 a.m. today
7:49 a.m. Mitch Evans with sports including a clip of Jim Brown commenting on Vick
7:51 a.m. Car Donation Charity, Braves promo
7:52 a.m. Skip Caray interview in advance of the Braves/Mets series tonight
7:54 a.m. York Air Conditioning, Scott Antique Market, Office Depot, Georgia Baptist Convention, nonprofit GST promo for backpack program for military children
7:58 a.m. Back to school promo, promo for John Linder interview
8 a.m. Fox News with Dave Anthony (coal miners, Minneapolis bridge, terror suspects in Britain)
8:02 a.m. Andy Rose and local news
8:04 a.m.: The Real Estate People
8:05 a.m.: Art “Madman” Mehring’s traffic, Jeff Hill’s weather
8:06 a.m. Philly Connection, Direct Insurance, Walgreen
8:07 a.m. John Linder interview on the fair tax.
8:12 a.m. Robert Novak, political journalist, promoting his book “The Prince of Darkness.” (Novak notes that over 50 years, Jimmy Carter was the worst president and frequently lied.)
8:17 a.m.: Randy notes that it’s “hard talking to someone with 50 years of experience. You can’t even scratch the service.” They note that he said in his book that he underestimated George W. Bush when he first met him. Spiff noted that while he appears to be “bumbling Bush” in press conferences, he’s quite articulate one on one.
8:18 a.m. Traffic, weather
8:19 a.m. Georgia cruise card ad
8:20 a.m. Mitch Evans and sports.
8:22 a.m. Nissan service & parts
8:23 a.m. Wall Street Journal report
8:24 a.m. Original Mattress Factory, Real Estate People, promo for Rush
8:26 a.m.: Entertainment report (There’s some giggly comments opening the segment about how white men can’t dance but since we can’t see what they are doing in the studio, it’s hard to say what was going on.)
8:30 a.m. Fox News with Andy Rhodes
8:33 a.m. Home Depot, Braves promo
8:34 a.m. Traffic, weather
8:35 a.m. Smoky Mountain water park, Dr. Roof, Las Vegas Tahiti Village, Dave Ramsey promo
8:37 a.m. Weather with Randy, noting how hot it will be. “It’s pretty oppressive,” Spiff said. “Sixty degrees warmer than in the studio, as Mitch said.” Then they joked about Mitch wearing “layers.”
8:38 a.m.: Jon Heyman from Sports Illustrated interview with Mitch, Randy & Spiff to gab about Barry Bonds. As Randy noted, they schedule somebody every day in case he breaks the record. They ended up talking mostly about Bud Selig’s lukewarm reaction to the tie over the weekend and whether that was good or bad.
8:44 a.m. Randy & Spiff observed that Bonds makes Alex Rodriguez and Hank Aaron look great.
8:45 a.m. Traffic, weather (While Randy was talking about the 100-plus heat index, Spiff groaned and Randy cracked, “Spiff just sat on something vinyl.”)
8:46 a.m. CBS 46’s promo for “Power of 10,” Georgia Dept. of Agriculture, NAPA batteries, Just Brakes, Wal-Mart
8:49 a.m. Sports
