Wednesday, January 30, 2008

"Montel" over and out

As expected, CBS Television Distribution has officially canceled the long-running The Montel Williams Show after a seventeen-season run.

Montel Williams' talk show was dropped by Fox-owned stations in the top three markets (including KCOP-TV in Los Angeles and WPWR-TV in Chicago.)

In fact, KCOP was one of the founding stations of Montel Williams when Viacom and then owner of KCOP (Chris-Craft Television) rolled the program out in select test markets in 1991. The program nationally launched in syndication in 1992, with WPWR picking up the series (WPWR dropped Montel in 1997, but it would later return to the station in 2006, where it now airs at 3 p.m.)

CBS is offering best-of editions of Montel for next season on a straight cash basis (meaning no barter), but that could be a hard sell as most television outlets thumb their noses on those kinds of terms nowadays, especially with repeats of talk shows. The package is being offered to cable outlets as well.

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