TV Q&A: What’s up with KDKA-TV meteorologists playing musical chairs?
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: What is going on with the KDKA-TV meteorologists? In the mornings, it seems like they are double teaming us, alternating between Ron Smiley and Trey...
TV Talk: ‘SNL’ celebrates 50 years; Pittsburgher back on ‘Jeopardy!’
“SNL50: The Anniversary Special” offered something for all fans: Those who come for the music (Lil Wayne and The Roots; Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard; Paul McCartney), for viewers who love the recurring sketches/characters (Mike Myers’ Linda Richman; Cecily Strong’s Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation with at...
TV Talk: Max renews ‘The Pitt’ for 2nd season
Midway through its first season, the Pittsburgh-set medical drama “The Pitt” has been renewed for a second season by Max. The series, which films almost entirely in Burbank, Calif., shot at Allegheny General Hospital on the North Side for a week in September, collecting scenes that have been inserted in...
TV Talk: ‘White Lotus’ drips with dread, soothes with dark humor; KDKA-TV hires reporterVideo
Even after the peak of Peak TV, few programs become topics of watercooler conversation because everyone is in their own silos watching their own thing. Still, it’s nice to have a known quantity back on HBO weekly. Not everyone will watch “The White Lotus” season three (9 p.m. Sunday, HBO,...
TV Q&A: When did ‘SNL’ start airing in Pittsburgh?Video
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: After watching the first two episodes of the “Saturday Night Live” documentary on Peacock, the memory came back: It was the fall of 1975. I...
TV Talk: Western Pa. native competes on Discovery’s ‘Moonshiners’
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Belle Vernon native Jason Bartolozzi never made moonshine until he started watching Discovery Channel’s “Moonshiners: Master Distiller” when it premiered in 2011. Now Bartolozzi, 45, competes in an upcoming episode (9 p.m. Feb. 18, Discovery...
TV Talk: Confusion and celebrities highlight Super Bowl LIX ads
Some companies bought ads during Super Bowl LIX that failed to make clear the purpose of the product being advertised, essentially setting fire to an $8 million investment (the cost to buy a 30-second ad, not including millions of dollars in production costs). Overall, the ads were not memorable (or...
TV Talk: Prime Video cancels winning comedy ‘Pradeeps of Pittsburgh’
In typical late Friday, take-out-the-trash (e.g. bad news you don’t want too many people to see) fashion, Amazon’s Prime Video confirmed it canceled “The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh,” its entertaining-for-the-whole-family comedy about an Indian family that immigrates to Pittsburgh. Although filmed in Toronto, the series was created by veteran TV comedy...
TV Talk: ‘Sanford & Son’ reboot evolves into ‘Clean Slate’ on Prime VideoVideo
Prior to his December 2023 death, veteran TV comedy producer Norman Lear signed on to executive produce a series that fits his oeuvre of pro-social, anti-prejudice comedies, from “All in the Family” to “Maude” to both iterations of “One Day at a Time.” “Clean Slate,” now streaming eight episodes on...
TV Q&A: What happened to ‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’?Video
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: The other two “Law & Order” shows have returned but not the Chris Meloni one, “Organized Crime.” How come? What happened to it? Is it...
TV Talk: 4 dogs from 2 Western Pa. rescues compete in ‘Puppy Bowl XXI’Video
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Western Pennsylvania will be represented by four dogs from local two shelters in Animal Planet’s “Puppy Bowl XXI” (2 p.m. Feb. 9, Animal Planet, Discovery, TBS, truTV, Max and discovery+). For its 21st edition, the...
TV Talk: ‘Recruit’ returns; Michael Keaton’s ‘Goodrich;’ WTAE hires reporterVideo
Netflix’s “The Recruit” is a poppier, more bubblegum spy show than Paramount+ with Showtime’s serious, dour and more authentic-seeming “The Agency.” But “The Recruit” is also more fun, a bit more of a lark that, profanity aside, could probably survive on a broadcast network. No wonder “The Recruit” comes from...
TV Q&A: Will Penguins games air this year on WTAE?
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: I was wondering if you knew when the Penguins games will be on WTAE. I know they do a few every year on there. I...
TV Talk: ‘This Is Us’ creator follows NBC hit with Hulu thriller ‘Paradise’Video
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. “This Is Us” creator Dan Fogelman, who spent a portion of his childhood in Bethel Park, returns with his first new one-hour drama series since the partially Pittsburgh-set NBC drama ended in 2022. Hulu’s “Paradise,”...
TV Talk: How CBS’s ‘Watson’ recreates Pittsburgh in British ColumbiaVideo
VANCOUVER, Canada — Turns out Pittsburgh is big enough for two TV medical dramas. Three weeks after streaming service Max debuted “The Pitt,” set at a fictionalized version of Allegheny General Hospital on the North Side, CBS premieres “Watson” (approximately 10 p.m. today following the AFC Championship game, KDKA-TV), a...
TV Talk: ‘Star Trek’ does ‘Suicide Squad;’ ‘Watson’ worth watching?Video
“Star Trek: Section 31,” a new movie streaming Friday on Paramount+, is pretty much the “Star Trek” version of “Suicide Squad” as a group of rogues team up to save the galaxy. Initially intended as a series, “Section 31” is set during the early seasons of “Star Trek: Discovery,” a...
Terminated employee sues WQED for age discrimination
Paula Zetter, a veteran Emmy-winning design director at WQED-TV who was among at least nine employees terminated by WQED CEO Jason Jedlinski in late 2023 and early 2024, filed an age discrimination lawsuit against the public broadcaster last week. According to court documents, Zetter seeks reinstatement to her job or...
TV Q&A: Will WQED-TV improve its signal?Video
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: Any word on the possibility of WQED-TV improving its signal strength? Between their reduced signal, my antenna not doing the job, and no PBS app...
TV Talk: Pittsburgher absent from 4th season of ‘Joe Schmo’Video
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Through its first three seasons — in 2003, 2004 and 2013 — there was always a Pittsburgher as the mark on “The Joe Schmo Show,” a faux reality competition where all the contestants are actors...
TV Talk: ‘Severance’ back after delay; Manganiello’s Steelers cakesVideo
In the battle for viewers’ eyeballs, Apple TV+ remains a bit of a small fish in the large streaming pond, but Hollywood folks like to work for the service because Apple has more money to spend on shows than traditional Hollywood studios, although reports suggest even Apple is trying to...
TV Q&A: Did a KDKA-TV reporter switch stations?Video
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: I was watching coverage of the Los Angeles fires on the CBS News website and saw KDKA-TV’s Barry Pintar in Los Angeles. He seemed to...
TV Talk: Pittsburgh native HGTV star loses home in L.A. fire
Pittsburgh native Leanne Ford, who starred with her brother Steve Ford for a few seasons on HGTV home makeover shows, posted to Instagram last week that less than a month after getting the keys to a new home in Los Angeles’ Rustic Canyon, the house was consumed by the Palisades...
TV Talk: Dick Wolf gets serialized with ‘On Call’Video
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. For executive producer Dick Wolf’s first scripted streaming series, “On Call” co-creators Tim Walsh (“Chicago P.D.,” “Hightown”) and Elliot Wolf (Dick Wolf’s son who was an executive producer on the unscripted series “Law & Order:...
TV Talk: Is ‘The Pitt’ — with all its local references — worth watching?
The first two episodes of streaming-only series “The Pitt” are available on Max (new episodes drop in subsequent weeks on Thursdays through April 10), and ultimately this Pittsburgh-set hospital drama proves to be fast-paced with well-developed doctors, med students and sometimes patient characters. It’s a grab-you-by-the-throat drama with each episode...
TV Talk: WPXI names new weekday evening anchor
As expected, WPXI announced morning anchor Gordon Loesch will succeed longtime Channel 11 anchor David Johnson, who retired last month. Loesch will anchor alongside Lisa Sylvester during the 5, 6 and 11 p.m. WPXI newscasts beginning Jan. 20. He’ll also co-anchor at 6:30 p.m. with Liz Kilmer and at 10...
