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Twentieth Won’t Renew ‘Morning Show’

Jan 8, 2009  •  Post A Comment

Twentieth Television has opted not to renew its syndicated daytime talk show “The Morning Show With Mike and Juliet” for the 2009-10 season, the distributor announced today.
Currently in its second season, “Morning Show” will continue to produce new episodes until June, and will air until September. “Morning Show” is cleared in a majority of the major markets on Fox Television Stations.
Owned-and-operated Fox stations airing “The Morning Show With Mike and Juliet” may opt to expand their local morning news broadcasts in order to fill the time period to be vacated in September. Such a move may not cost local stations much more in terms of production costs.
Fox O&Os in Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Detroit and Phoenix have increased their morning news broadcasts in recent years.
“We are very proud of ‘The Morning Show With Mike and Juliet,’” said Bob Cook, chief operating officer of Twentieth Television, in a statement. “Over the past two years, we set out to produce a high-quality show that provided viewers with an engaging source of entertainment. We believe we accomplished this goal. Unfortunately, the current serious economic conditions made it challenging to continue producing the type of unique program that we wanted to deliver.”
During the most recent ratings period for the week ending Dec. 22, “Morning” posted a 0.8 household rating, a tenth of a ratings point higher than last place in the talk show genre.
Economic difficulties have forced syndicators to make difficult programming decisions. New programming that may have been a firm go in years past now stays in a holding pattern as cash-strapped stations remain skittish about paying large license fees for untested material.
Even established shows, such as Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution’s “The Tyra Banks Show,” are making moves in order to shoulder the economic burden stations are feeling. “Tyra” is coming out of syndication next year to air solely on The CW in the afternoon. The production schedule also has been limited from 34 weeks to 26 weeks for next season.
(11:20 a.m.: Added third paragraph)

12 Comments

  1. This is the first of many to come in the sad state of the economy. Too bad, because it was well done.

  2. I am disgusted that another show that I like to watch is gone with absolutely no warning, and to make it worse, it’s replaced with a stupid infomercial. Infomercials might be profitable for TV stations, but are not a service for a stations consumers! At least keep a show on until there is something decent to replace it with!

  3. I am furious that Mike and Juliet is ending. It is the only morning show my husband and I watch. NO Oprah, No Ellen. No The View. Just Mike and Juliet.

  4. I really enjoyed the M&J show for the 6 months that I knew it was on. Especially Mike who never failed to embarrass someone. It is untrue that a TV networks job is to find a show that appeals to the masses. If it doesn’t produce the numbers, tough s. The viewers always lose out. The networks produce shows to please their advertisers and it is a shame, the quality of TV can only go down based on these principles

  5. I am sorry to hear that Mike and Juliet show is ending. It was different and it is obvious they have great chemistry. Hopefully, if not another syndication outlet, that a cable news outlet picks it up, most of those networks would love those kind of numbers the way things are right now.

  6. I really enjoyed watching this show especially when they investigated products to see if they actually worked. The sad reality was the time slot; they were workikng against real power house such as “The View” and or “Regis & Kelly” that is so sad if they would have left it at the same time Martha Stewart was on it would’v e had huge ratings common execs. take a look at the whole picture!

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