Twentieth Television confirmed Thursday it has pushed back the launch of its upcoming syndicated strip “The Suze Orman Show” until next year, citing a scarcity of good time periods on local stations.

The distributor decided to delay the show despite the fact that it just clinched some major market clearances for “Suze” last week, and industry insiders said the show was well on its way to a full pickup for fall 2005. Spokeswomen for WCBS-TV in New York and KNBC-TV in Los Angeles last week confirmed “Suze” had been cleared on their stations for a fall 2005 launch (TelevisionWeek, Feb. 21).

“The interest and commitment in Suze Orman and her talk show among both broadcasters and advertisers remain very high,” Twentieth said in a statement. “While momentum for the strip has been building, fewer available attractive time periods in fall 2005 and the current economics of launching a daytime strip constrain the manner in which we wish to bring this very important program to viewers.

“In our view, there is much greater potential for ‘Suze Orman’ in fall 2006, or possibly earlier, when a number of highly desirable time periods are slated to become available. Therefore, we have adjusted the program’s time table to reflect the correct marketplace environment.”