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From: furuta@uw-june (Richard Furuta)
Newsgroups: net.tv
Subject: Linda Ellerbee (formerly of Overnight) on David Letterman
Message-ID: <866@uw-june>
Date: Sat, 21-Jan-84 02:54:39 EST
Article-I.D.: uw-june.866
Posted: Sat Jan 21 02:54:39 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Jan-84 01:56:56 EST
Organization: U. Washington, Computer Sci
Lines: 41

Well, I haven't seen any mention of Linda Ellerbee's appearance on David
Letterman's show last week, so I thought I might summarize it (apologies to
those of you who prefer to hear about other things).  She said that she had
met with Grant Tinker before the show went off the air and had suggested
three possible alternatives: (1) keep the show on the air, (2) replace the
show with a weekly Sunday evening show, starting at 11:30, which would be an
extended "week in review," or (3) "freeze dry" the show for later
reconstitution should another prime time series bite the dust.  "I wouldn't
rule that out," she reports Tinker as saying.  When she asked how much not
to rule that out, apparently the reply was "Don't bet on it."

She also told the story of a producer at NBC, who had nothing to do with the
news division, who had been buying jewelry from the same jeweler for years.
This year he went to buy a Christmas present for his wife.  The jeweler said
"Sorry, I can't sell them to you.  When you took NBC Overnight off, I turned
off my television and now I won't have anything more to do with NBC."

The rest of the interview consisted of a cute story about life on an Alaska
commune and some hedging about whether she had any plans to leave NBC once
her contract expires in June.

I bring all of this up now, in part because I'm not convinced that the show
is off the air for good.  It's instructive to note that in the same month
that NBC canceled Overnight, CBS returned Cagney and Lacey to the air due,
primarily, to continuing viewer and newspaper attention.

Incidentally, I am told that co-host Bill (and I won't even attempt to spell
his name) used to be associated with KQED Newsroom, a Bay Area program of
years past in which the reporters went out and covered stories and then came
back, sat around a big table, and discussed them.  (KQED is a public
television station in San Francisco.)  I find it somewhat interesting that
Linda Ellerbee has become the primary figure associated with Overnight and he
has become a secondary one since I often found his presence and contribution
to the show to be the more reasoned and intellectual one.

			--Rick

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