Thursday, March 16, 2000

UPN affiliate picks up ABC's 'The View,' 'Port Charles'

Bit by bit, show by show, KTOV is becoming a more competitive presence in local television. The fledgling UPN affiliate, still not available to AT&T Cable subscribers, begins rolling out some off-network and syndicated shows over the next couple of weeks, with more to follow in May.
   "The View," Barbara Walters' ABC daytime talk show, will join the KTOV lineup at 10 a.m. weekdays within the next two weeks, said station owner Don Gillis. Just nominated for a Daytime Emmy, "The View" hasn't been seen here since it was dropped last year by Fox station KDF. ABC affiliate KIII airs syndicated talk shows instead.
   Co-hosted by Meredith Vieira, Star Jones, Joy Behar and Lisa Ling, "The View" is a lively hour of interviews with celebrities and newsmakers. Walters drops by a couple of times a week.
   KTOV has also picked up the ABC soap "Port Charles," which has never aired in this market. A spin-off of characters from the long running "General Hospital," "Port Charles" will be seen at 11:30 a.m. weekdays.
   Among other first-run syndication programs set to air on KTOV are the talk show "Forgive and Forget" (no time slot yet), hosted by Robin Givens, the action-drama "Total Recall" (9 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays) and the relationship show "Love Her or Lose Her."
   Reruns of "M*A*S*H," "King of the Hill" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" have also found homes on KTOV and will begin showing up in May.
   On Oscar night, Mar. 26, KTOV will carry a syndicated awards pre-show special live from Hollywood at 5 p.m. (ABC airs the awards presentation at 7 p.m.)
   Gillis also said he's considering adding a local daytime talk show to be hosted by his wife, commercial spokesperson Deidre Gillis, and KEYS-AM/1440 talk host Jim Lago. The Federal Communications Commission licensing agreement with KTOV requires the station to air some local programming and the show would fulfill that. Gillis has not decided when it will debut.
   KTOV can be seen over-the-air on channel 7, on Heartland Wireless channel 2 and on Falcon Cable channel 52.
   Gillis, stepson of KIII owner Mike McKinnon, is leaving his general sales manager job at the ABC station to concentrate full-time on KTOV and KXPX. His business partner, Fred Hoffmann, is joining him, leaving the post of chief engineer at KIII.
   "These stations had been kind of hobby-TV for us up to now, with us working on weekends and late nights. But now it's full-time for both of us as we try to add more programming," Gillis said.
   Whattaya dune?
   On Sunday night, the Travel Channel premieres three one-hour specials geared to the inquisitive armchair tourist. The first is the best. In "Land of Fear" (7 p.m. Sunday), photojournalist David Adams journeys to Niger to cross the Tenere desert the old-fashioned way, by camel caravan with the mysterious Tuareg tribe. Their folkways, wardrobes and tribal rivalries are the same as they were thousands of years ago. Their mud-brick villages, Adams explains, may be the last places on earth where the most skilled workers are still the sword-makers.
   Adams, a pink-faced Brit with a devil-may-care attitude, sets out across the shifting sands by Jeep and camel, his Tuareg guides patiently watching him sweat and suffer in the heat. Wrapped in layers of clothes to conserve body moisture, the Tuaregs sip only a cup and a half of water a day. Adams gulps down more than a gallon.
   The trip offers lessons in the history of the salt trade and lets Adams observe tribal games that carry on traditions passed down from the Crusades.
   "Land of Fear" is followed at 8 p.m. by "Gasherbrum: Ascent on G-2," about a climber attempting to scale one of Pakistan's highest peaks, and "Quest for the Cloud People" (9 p.m.), featuring an anthropologist's trek through the Peruvian Andes.
  
  
  

 
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