Word: shows
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...York Times or Washington Post: a sober (if succinct) look at the day's events. Come next September, however, those viewers will have to tune in half an hour earlier for Dan Rather's report. Replacing it at 7 will be a different sort of news show, based on a different sort of newspaper: USA Today...
Though still five months away from its scheduled debut, a new syndicated show inspired by the colorful, low-calorie newspaper is causing a stir in TV circles. Like its print model, the USA Today TV show will be a fast-paced potpourri of news and features, divided into four sections: money, sports, life and USA (hard news). Except for one "cover story" of four minutes or so, the pieces will be brief and numerous (about 35 a half-hour). This broadcast spin-off of "McPaper" -- McRather, perhaps? -- has impressive parentage: it comes from GTG Entertainment, the new company headed...
...show is selling briskly: 118 stations, covering 84% of the country, have bought it thus far, and most plan to air it in the lucrative hour just before prime time, when game shows like Wheel of Fortune predominate. What bothers network news executives, however, is the decision by Washington's WUSA-TV (also owned by Gannett) to push the CBS Evening News up by 30 minutes to make room for it. New York City's WCBS-TV is expected to make the same move. These stations can keep more of the ad revenues with a syndicated show in that time...
...Today's creators insist that their show is not competing with network news. "Television is a menu," says Friedman, "and not everything has to be / meat and potatoes." Tinker dismisses suggestions that the video dessert tray is not in keeping with the tonier series (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Hill Street Blues) he has been identified with. "My definition of a good television show," he says, "is one that hits the target it aims...
...chief target for USA Today is viewers who have already heard or seen the day's top news and want an extra helping of follow-up stories and features. A presentation videotape indicates that the show will match the newspaper's fondness for personalities, opinion polls and stray factoids (24% of all married people say they have a secret that would destroy their marriage). The show will have its own staff but will draw on the newspaper for ideas and preview some of the paper's next-day stories...