NBC has announced that it will revamp its morning and afternoon lineups in September -- and, to no one's great surprise, the soap opera "Another World" won't be on the new schedule.
This will, of course, come as quite a blow to the show's fans. The problem is that there just aren't enough of those fans out there anymore -- low ratings did the show in.Of course, ownership also had something to do with it. As has long been planned, NBC will premiere a new soap titled "Passions" in the fall -- and the network owns that one. ("AW" is owned by Procter & Gamble Productions.) "Passions" comes to us from the former executive producer of "Days of Our Lives," NBC's top-rated soap.
NBC gave its other low-rated soap, "Sunset Beach," a six-month reprieve, renewing that show through the end of the year. And, yes indeed, the network is a part-owner of "Beach."
(Locally, "Sunset Beach" airs on KUWB-Ch. 30. NBC's other daytime shows are seen on local network affiliate KSL-Ch. 5.)
"Another World" has been in trouble in the ratings for years, but it did have its glory days, receiving numerous Emmy awards since it debuted on March 4, 1964. The show was the first to go to a one-hour format (in January 1975) and experimented -- unsuccessfully -- with a 90-minute format from March 1979 to August 1980.
The show's exact sign-off date has yet to be announced.
OTHER NBC CHANGES: NBC, which has lagged in third place in the daytime ratings for many years, has announced a number of changes to its lineup -- changes designed to take advantage of the strength of "Today" and "Days of Our Lives."
The early morning news show "Sunrise" is also kaput. Instead, the network will offer a half-hour of business news programmed by NBC's cable channel CNBC. Titled "Early Today," it will be seen from 4:30-5 a.m.
The two hours from 5-7 a.m. will be reserved for local news. (That's a half hour more than is currently scheduled.)
And, as previously announced, NBC will follow its hugely popular "Today" show with "Later Today," a one-hour show from 9-10 a.m. that will be hosted by Jodi Applegate.
(Also as previously announced, NBC is dropping "Leeza" from its lineup. That show will continue, however, as Paramount is syndicating it to stations across the country.)
The network would also like to see its affiliates move "Days of Our Lives" to 1 p.m., followed by "Passions" at 2 p.m.
(Locally, KSL is planning on carrying "Later Today" and has not made a decision yet about "Passions." That one may well end up on Ch. 5, but don't expect to see "Sunset Beach" there anytime soon.)
WELL, DUH! NBC's publicity machinery is all agog (or at least it wants critics to be all agog) about the fact that "Will & Grace" pulled in its best ratings ever this past Thursday.
No kidding. The show actually did better sandwiched between "Friends" and "Frasier" -- the No. 2 and No. 3 shows on TV -- than it did in a horrible time slot on Monday and a not-so-hot time slot on Tuesday?
Stunning.
Not that this is bad news, however. "Will & Grace" is a big step up in quality from both "Jesse" (the show it's replacing on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. for the next few weeks) or the increasingly unwatchable Thursday-night series "Veronica's Closet."
CROSSOVER: NBC has had such success with its "Law & Order" and "Homicide: Life on the Street" crossover episodes that the network is going to try the same strategy with pair of other shows -- the Saturday-night series "Pretender" and "Profiler."
In episodes scheduled to air on May 8, "The Pretender's" Jarod (Michael T. Weiss) pretends to be a an Atlanta police detective to aid in the search for a missing 13-year-old boy -- a genius, of course. He teams up with FBI agent Dr. Samantha Waters (Ally Walker) of "Profiler."
"The Pretender" is a decent show, but "Profiler" has always been darn near unwatchable. It'll be interesting to see how this turns out.
MORE "FOX FILES": Fox is so pleased with the performance of its rather suspect newsmagazine "Fox Files" that it has ordered a raft of new episodes -- enough to carry it through the summer with mostly original installments.
OK, so it's really not doing all that great in the ratings. But, up against NBC's powerhouse lineup on Thursday, "Fox Files" has been doing better than anything else the network has tried there. And it's cheaper to produce than comedies or dramas.
A few years ago, it would have been easier to poke fun at the pseudo-news that "Fox Files" reports every week. But in an era when there are five cheesy editions of "Dateline NBC" every week, "Fox Files" doesn't stand out as being any cheesier than many of its competitors.