Super Bowl Update

Lexington, Ky.-based LM Communications is one step closer to completing its purchase of Louisville's CW affiliate, WBKI-TV, as the FCC last week gave its final approval to the deal.

LM, which is owned by Lynn Martin, announced in June that it was purchasing the station, and since then the company has already taken over its operation and handed it over to Independence Television (a/k/a Block Communications), which is running the once-moribund station as a triopoly with Fox affiliate WDRB (ch. 41) and WMYO (ch. 58).

WBKI is LM's first TV station, but the company owns several Lexington radio stations along with others in Charleston, S.C., and Charleston, W. Va.

CBS Television Distribution (CTD) and Yahoo! announced on Tuesday that they've reached a deal combining the broadcasting power of The Insider with the online reach of Yahoo!. As part of the deal, entertainment newsmagazine The Insider will be renamed omg! Insider in January.  

Kevin Frazier and Brooke Anderson will continue to host the TV show, as well as draw on Yahoo! talent such as Kristen Aldridge (omg! NOW) and Michael Yo (The Yo Show on Yahoo!). In addition, Yahoo!'s popular omg! entertainment news site, visited by nearly 30 million users each month, will be the exclusive home to video provided by the TV show. 

omg! Insider will be a true web and on-air collaboration that aims to reinvent how consumers access entertainment news across screens. Online, Yahoo!'s omg! will provide continually updated coverage, including video clips, celebrity interviews, photo galleries, engaging editorial and a number of interactive social features. On air each evening, the TV show will offer a unique mix of informal in-studio conversations with celebrities and personality-driven discussions around the day's hottest topics and trends.

The new venture also will provide a substantial promotional platform for TV station partners – the web site will post breaking news throughout the day and continually promote the television broadcast later that night.

"We're excited to give our affiliate stations the opportunity to be associated with one of the largest entertainment news sites in the business," said Joe DiSalvo, President of Sales for CTD. "We're adding value to The Insider by tapping into an online audience in the millions and taking advantage of Yahoo!'s omg! brand and its loyal following. Our stations will also get an unparalleled promotional opportunity online. This is the perfect example of what the convergence of broadcast and digital is all about."

"We're thrilled to bring together two of today's most popular entertainment news brands to create an ‘always-on' content experience across TV, the Web and beyond," said Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!. "Yahoo! is focused on bringing the most personalized and relevant information to our users. Original video content and branded multi-screen programming help us to deliver on that promise. We're proud to collaborate with CBS Television Distribution to bring omg! Insider to millions of viewers in such a unique and exciting way."

A spinoff of Entertainment Tonight, The Insider is now in its 9th season.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Insider can currently be seen on the following channels around the region (check each station's schedule for airtimes): WTVW (Evansville), WTWO (Terre Haute), WBKI (Louisville), WPSD (Paducah), KPLR (St. Louis), WNKY-CBS (Bowling Green) and WZTV (Nashville).

After a six-and-a-half year relationship, WBKI's 10 p.m. newscast produced by WHAS11 has reached the end of the line.

Anchor Doug Proffitt announced Friday night that Sunday night's edition will be the last.

The two stations entered into an agreement to produce the 10 p.m. edition in October 2005, and it premiered a few months later.

Earlier this year, however, WBKI was sold to Lexington-based LM Communications, and LM put the station's management in the hands of Block Communications' WDRB and WMYO.  That change has already birthed a new 7 p.m. newscast produced by WDRB.  That newscast premiered earlier this month.

As for what will replace the news at 10, TV Guide shows that the station will air How I Met Your Mother at that time beginning Monday night.

Carrie Underwood, Pitbull, Will.i.am and Carole King are set to headline the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s new three-hour Labor Day weekend entertainment special called MDA Show of Strength, which will air Sunday night at 7 p.m. CT (8 ET) on 14WFIE (Evansville), KSDK (St. Louis), WBKI and WMYO-58.3 (Louisville) and WZTV-Fox 17 (Nashville).

The show, which is a much shorter replacement for the long-running Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, will feature more than a dozen of today’s top entertainers from Hollywood, Nashville and New York, and will include inspirational “stories of strength” about families affected by muscular dystrophy and related diseases.

“We couldn’t be more excited about the show and the incredible talent we have lined up this year,” said MDA interim president Valerie Cwik, M.D. “MDA is in business to save and enhance lives. Our show will both entertain and urge the American public to answer the call to support critically important research and services for more than a million Americans affected by neuromuscular diseases.”

The following stars also are scheduled to appear: All-American Rejects, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, B.o.B, Brandy, Luke Bryan, Gavin DeGraw, Hot Chelle Rae, Karmin, Alanis Morissette, OneRepublic, Eva Simons, Paula Abdul, Max Adler, Jann Carl, Diana DeGarmo, Lou Ferrigno, Benji Madden, Joel Madden, Jesse McCartney, Tim McGraw, The Miz, Nancy O’Dell, Khloe Kardashian Odom, Alison Sweeney, Ace Young and more.

“This year’s show gives everyone involved a unique opportunity,” said executive producer RAC Clark. “We have a chance to tell a series of compelling stories about MDA families while delivering quality entertainment. In doing so, we can raise public awareness of MDA’s long-standing mission of help for today and hope for tomorrow.”

Louisville's CW affiliate, WBKI, is trading in its 10 p.m. newscast for one at 7 p.m.

To be produced by WDRB, which now handles most operations for WBKI, the new 7 PM WDRB Local Evening News on WBKI (say that ten times fast!) will debut on Sept. 17 and will be anchored by David Scott and Jennifer Baileys, who also anchor the WDRB Local Evening News, which currently airs at 6:30 p.m. ET on WDRB.

The new newscast will replace the existing 10 p.m. program produced for WBKI by WHAS11.

“This is just the first of many cooperative moves that will benefit both WBKI and WDRB, and we couldn’t be more excited,” said Lynn Martin, the head of LM Communications Television, which recently purchased WBKI. “We’re pursuing many joint strategies to enhance WBKI’s profile in the market, and establishing an early evening news presence is one of the most important. WDRB’s news department produces a consistently superior journalistic product, and we’re happy to able to showcase it on our station.”

WDRB's management expressed pleasure with having an additional outlet for the station's news product.

“This will allow us to deliver more great local news content to the families and viewers in our area,” said Barry Fulmer, WDRB's news director. “From the standpoint of exposure, this visibility in the 7 p.m. time slot on the new WBKI should give us the opportunity to expand both of our audience bases even further.”

Get ready, folks:  Bill Cunningham is coming to your TV screen.

The attorney and conservative talk radio host, whose Sunday night radio program, Live on Sunday Nights It's Bill Cunningham, is distributed nationally to over 300 radio stations, is bringing his TV talk show to the CW television network and its more than 200 affiliates nationwide beginning Sept. 17.

The Bill Cunningham Show debuted last fall on Tribune Broadcasting's TV stations throughout the country as well as two Local TV, LLC-owned stations and Raycom's WXIX in Cincinnati (Cunningham's hometown).  The expansion to the CW stations means that viewers in the Tri-State will now get to experience what's been described as a traditional conflict-resolution style tabloid show with Cunningham's viewpoints blended in.

Stations which will carry the show in and around the Tri-State include WAZE-LP (Evansville); WQWQ, WQTV and KFVS 12.2 (Paducah/Murray/Cape Girardeau); WBKO 13.3 (Bowling Green); WBKI and WMYO 58.3 (Louisville); KPLR (St. Louis*) and WNAB (Nashville).  In the Indianapolis market, WXIN-Fox 59 carried the show last season, and it's not yet known if it will remain there or be moved to its sister station, WTTV/WTTK, which can be seen in Terre Haute and nearby communities.

“We are very pleased to add The Bill Cunningham Show to our weekday afternoon block,” said John Maatta, chief operating officer at the CW, when the network announced Cunningham's addition earlier this year. “Bill is a talented host with a fascinating program, and we know he’ll be a terrific asset for the CW and our affiliated stations.”

Local air times for the show have not yet been announced; I'll bring you those in early September when they become available.

Over the weekend, a couple of readers let me know that Louisville-area MyNetwork TV affiliate WMYO (ch. 58, Salem, Ind.) added a new subchannel, 58.3.  And effective today, CW affiliate WBKI is broadcasting on that new addition.

As you may know, WBKI is in the process of being sold to Lexington-based radio station owner LM Communications, and LM has inked an agreement through which the owners of WDRB 41 and WMYO will operate the station.

It's not known if the addition of WBKI's programming to WMYO will be permanent, or if it's a temporary move until a better signal can be obtained from WBKI's existing transmitter west of Lebanon, Ky., which has had numerous problems of late.

When more details become available, I'll bring them to you.