Originally posted Tuesday, January 21, 2020 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
After a successful test run last November on selected Fox stations including Fox 5, Atlanta producer Will Packer's entertainment newsmagazine "Central Ave" will go weekly this fall as a syndicated show.
“Central Ave,” shot in Atlanta, was tested for five weeks in November and December in eight markets including Fox 5 (WAGA-TV) at 7 p.m., temporarily subbing out long-running gossip news show “Dish Nation,” which is also partly shot in Atlanta.
The new show will air two new half-hour episodes available for weekend syndication, usually packaged as an hour, on Fox-owned stations such as Fox 5. (Times forthcoming.) BET's Julissa Bermudez and Olympic track star and five-time gold medalist Sanya Richards-Ros were hosts with multiple correspondents on the road.
The show will offer entertainment and pop culture news through a more socially conscious and diverse lens than its rivals.
Some topics it addressed during its test run included social media shaming, hot mics, the opioid crisis and on-line dating.
"We knew from the minute Central Ave debuted that it is a winner and our partners at Fox agreed," producer Debmar-Mercury Co-Presidents Ira Bernstein and Mort Marcus said in a press release (since obviously, the couldn't have both said it.) "With our consensus being shows like this rarely come along, and with an unusually crowded weekday market this fall, we looked toward the weekends. Having the entire stage all to itself, we believe 'Central Ave has a good chance to thrive airing in strong weekend time periods with all original episodes and ultimately return as a weekday strip."
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