Wednesday, September 15, 1999
Pax will strengthen local UPN
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Pax TV, the year-old seventh commercial network, finally has a Tristate broadcast affiliate.
Low-power WBQC-TV (Channel 25), the Tristate's UPN station, has become a “secondary affiliate” of Pax TV. Since Pax TV launched a year ago, it has been seen here as a cable channel on Time Warner and InterMedia systems, because Greater Cincinnati only has six commercial stations, one each for ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, WB and UPN.
Pax TV also exists only as a cable channel in San Diego, Baltimore and Charlotte, N.C.
As a “secondary affiliate,” Channel 25 will air Pax TV shows at different times than the network feeds seen on local cable systems. The lineup:
• Touched by an Angel airs 6 p.m. weekdays on Channel 25 (9 p.m. on cable).
• Diagnosis Murder airs 11:30 p.m. on Channel 25 (10 p.m. on cable).
• Pax TV's new fall original shows, which air at 8 p.m. on cable, will air at 5 p.m. on Channel 25: Destination Stardom (Monday), Chicken Soup for the Soul (Tuesday), Twice in a Lifetime (Wednesday), It's a Miracle (Thursday) and Little Men (Friday).
The secondary affiliation is a win-win situation for both parties. Channel 25, which celebrates its ninth anniversary Sept. 29, upgrades its programming, while Pax TV reaches more households.
Channel 25 also has picked up NBC's Sunset Beach (11 a.m. weekdays), dropped by Channel 5 last week, and Leeza Gibbons' Leeza talk show (noon weekdays starting Monday), which had aired on NBC and Channel 5.
Reruns of Patrick Stewart's Star Trek: The Next Generation will be added at 10 p.m. weekdays starting Monday, following the prime-time UPN lineup.
At 1 p.m. weekdays starting next week, Channel 25 will premiere the Screen Gems Network, an umbrella title for I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched and other old shows.
Thanks to UPN, Channel 25 also has a much stronger afternoon kids block from Disney this fall: Hercules (3 p.m.), Doug (3:30), Sabrina, the Animated Series (4) and Recess (4:30).
All of this replaces the daily western movie, Roy Rogers, Kit Carson, Gabby Hayes and Bill Cosby's old I Spy (which moves to 3 a.m.).
“This is the best schedule we've ever had,” says Elliott Block, general manager and owner.
“The UPN/Pax affiliations gives us some leverage to get on local cable systems that don't carry us, or Pax,” he says.
Only FrontierVision in Delhi Township, western Hamilton County and Florence, and the Lebanon city cable system, carry Channel 25. Although cable systems must carry area full-power commercial stations, they are not required to pick up low-power stations.
THEN WENT YOU: Oak Hills High School graduate Susan Floyd has been bumped from ABC's fall schedule. ABC has pulled her sitcom, Then Came You, which was to debut Thursday, Oct. 7 (8:30 p.m., Channels 9, 2). It will premiere at midseason.
The network plans to expand Whose Line Is It Anyway? to an hour (8-9 p.m.) in the interim.
ABC did not cite a reason for the postponement. Usually that means the network has big problems with the show. Sometimes shows pulled from the fall lineup are never seen.
Ms. Floyd stars as Billie, a 33-year-old divorced book editor, who falls in love with a hotel room-service waiter (Thomas Newton). It is based on the real-life romance of series creator Betsy Thomas (My So-Called Life).
EMMY TALLY: If you weren't keeping score at home, here's my Emmy night batting average — .214, or 3 for 14. I only guessed right on Dennis Franz (best drama actor), Edie Falco (best drama actress) and Michael Badalucco (best supporting actor).
Fox's Emmy telecast averaged 17.3 million viewers per minute, the lowest Emmy audience since 1990.
ENQUIRERING MIND: This Enquirering mind wants to know: With CBS being bought for $37 billion by Viacom, owners of Paramount Pictures, MTV, Nickelodeon and VH1, will CBS launch a series called Behind the Muzak?
Chris O'Brien from WGRR-FM (103.5) says this about the CBS purchase: “Viacom must really, really, really love Raymond.”
And Waycross Community Video center has announced, in the wake of the largest media merger in U.S. history, that the Forest Park public access studio “will merge with nobody.” Executive Director Chip Bergquist boasts that Waycross will continue to be the TV resource for Time Warner subscribers in Forest Park, Greenhills and Springfield Township.
FIREWORKS REPEAT: Expect a better picture of the Toyota/WEBN-FM Riverfest fireworks when Channel 9 repeats the two-hour telecast at 3 p.m. Sunday. Channel 9 will replace terrible live shots provided by Chopper 9 with a videotape of the same pictures recorded on board the helicopter. Apparently pilot Dale Williams was flying too low to deliver a quality signal to the station.
The fireworks repeat at 4:05 p.m. Sunday, midway through the telecast.
AROUND THE DIAL: On the second episode of Fox's not-so-real Get Real, 15-year-old Kenny (Jesse Eisenberg) is arrested for being a peeping Tom (9 p.m. today, Channels 19, 45).
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