"Ellen DeGeneres" Still Kicking
Ellen DeGeneres can keep right on dancing. And talking.
The comic's namesake talk show has been locked up for three more seasons by NBC-owned stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and seven other big cities.
The deal, announced Thursday, will help keep The Ellen DeGeneres Show on the air across the TV nation through the 2009-10 season. Currently, the show is renewed in 90 percent of the country through 2008-09, and 70 percent through the following year.
Jim Paratore, an executive with Warner Bros., which syndicates the show, praised DeGeneres in the highest press-release speak as a host-a-tron who "connects with the upscale, suburban soccer-moms that advertisers pay a premium to reach."
And you just thought she was funny.
Ellen DeGeneres, not to be confused for Ellen, the comic's late prime-time sitcom, premiered in 2003. Last May, the show won its third straight Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show; DeGeneres won her second straight Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host.
With its renewal, Ellen DeGeneres becomes an Oprah-esque constant in a daytime TV world in transition.
In addition to the usual new show launches (Megan Mullally, etc.), the fall will see Meredith Vieira complete her move from ABC's The View to NBC's Today Show, and Rosie O'Donnell complete move from her house to ABC's The View.
A new Gallup Poll released Tuesday reminded that musical chairs is a game played at a network's own risk. Per the poll, for example, 44 percent of adults have never, ever heard of Vieira. (Katie Couric, bound to CBS News' anchor chair from Today, by comparison, was unknown to all but 8 percent of respondents.)
As for O'Donnell, the good news for The View was that she scored more favorably with adults (32 percent) than the recently deposed Star Jones Reynolds (19 percent). The bad news for The View was that O'Donnell's unfavorable rating (60 percent) was actually higher than Jones Reynolds' (45 percent).
DeGeneres' popularity, or not, was not gauged in the poll. She is presently free to dance without reservation.
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