Deborah Norville’s “Inside Edition” is back on CBS46, thanks in part to Dr. Mehmet Oz.
“The Dr. Oz” show is leaving the airwaves Friday because Oz is running for an open Senate seat in Pennsylvania. This Monday, Jan. 17, CBS46′s new owner Atlanta-based Gray Television is adding a local newscast at 3 p.m., then segueing into syndicated news program “Inside Edition” at 3:30 p.m.
Norville’s show has been airing in Atlanta at 10 p.m. on sister station Peachtree TV.
“We’re excited to be finally back on CBS46,” said Norville, a Dalton native, in an interview earlier this week with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We’ve been there before. It’s a better placement for us. It’s a better fit for us.”
She tapes the show live out of New York City at 3 p.m. so viewers in Atlanta will be able to see it almost live. “We’ll be freshly baked,” she said.
Norville has been host since 1995, the longest current run for any anchor of a national news program in the same place.
“It’s crazy that I’ve been here this long, but I’m proud of the work we’ve done,” said Norville, who graduated the University of Georgia in 1979.
She was speaking to the AJC soon after her alma mater won the college football national championship for the first time since the year after she graduated.
“It was amazing,” she said. “My kids were in the city. I was in the country. My husband was in another state. My eldest was in Australia. We spent the game in a family group chat! It was fun!”
Living in New York, though, has made her far more paranoid about COVID-19 than most folks in Georgia.
“I’m at that point now where I think I’m getting a little crazy,” she said. “You don’t go into restaurants. You dash in and out. I hold my breath in the elevator. It’s still weird.”
She added that she has gone to a couple of UGA football games in Athens since the pandemic began. “It was simultaneously refreshing and terrifying,” she said. “That’s why we are the United States. Each state has its own way of dealing with things.”
Credit: INSIDE
Credit: INSIDE
>>RELATED: My 2011 interview with Norville when she discussed her time in Georgia
>>RELATED: Norville celebrates her 25th anniversary of “Inside Edition”
She said her show’s ratings have been solid during the pandemic. She feels “Inside Edition” is more like “comfort food” compared to other news programs.
“Although I’m not physically in the room with you, you’ve been seeing me for however long you’ve been watching the show,” she said. “There’s a certain comfort to that.”
She is also excited about Gray Television taking over CBS46 just last month after acquiring the TV assets of Meredith Corp. “They’ve just brought Monica Kaufman [Pearson] in,” she said. “It’s an awesome thing. They’re rebuilding. It’s now their flagship station.”
She even knows Gray’s CEO Hilton Howell because they are both on the board of the Broadcasters Foundation of America, which provides grants to men and women in the broadcasting business who have hit hard times.
Norville said “Inside Edition” is purposely doing a story out of Atlanta on Tuesday about a local woman who had an Apple Air Tag placed on her automobile but she can’t figure out where it is.
And though her show is not yet available on streaming services, Norville said many people watch clips off YouTube, where they’ve generated billions of views and have nearly 10 million subscribers.
ON TV
“Inside Edition,” 3:30 p.m. weekdays on CBS46 in Atlanta starting on Monday, Jan. 17
