Debmar-Mercury

The game show has been bought by stations covering more than 75% of the U.S., with upgrades to 5-8 p.m. in over half the country.

Fox Television Stations and Debmar Mercury today announced the renewal of The Wendy Williams Show through 2014 on the Fox-owned stations.  The daily one-hour entertainment talk show premiered in July 2009. It’s broadcast live from New York. Prior to hosting this show, Williams enjoyed a 23-year career as a radio personality. The Wendy Williams Show is produced and distributed by Debmar-Mercury.

Wendy Williams will spend August promoting the third season of her talk show this fall with a 17-station tour, during which she will visit with fans and participate in local events.

The former Two and a Half Men star will star in Anger Management, a Lionsgate Television sitcom loosely based on Revolution Studios’ 2003 hit comedy feature of the same name. Debmar-Mercury, which will distribute the series, is looking for a network and a show runner.

Disney-ABC’s talker with Katie Couric has grabbed the headlines in the wake of Oprah Winfrey’s departure from afternoon syndicated lineups. But she’s far from alone in the race for station slots starting in fall 2012. As things now stand, Couric could be battling against talk shows featuring a defrocked priest (from Debmar-Mercury), one of those Real Housewives (from Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution), the host of Survivor (from CBS Television Distribution) and the now-42 year-old Ricki Lake on a comeback bid (from Twentieth Television)..

Debmar-Mercury will launch the summer test of its new talk show, Father Albert, on July 11 on six FoxO&Os: WNYW New York at noon, KTTV Los Angeles at 2 p.m., KDFW Dallas at 1 p.m., WTVT Tampa at 11 a.m., KMSP Minneapolis at 1 p.m. and KSAZ Phoenix at 1 p.m. The test is expected to run for five weeks.

Debmar-Mercury today named Darren Doyle and Jim Kramer to the newly elevated posts of senior VP, sales, on the East and West Coasts. Kramer, who has served as VP, sales, […]

The COO of the nation’s 15th largest station group believes broadcasters need to wean themselves from their heavy dependence on Hollywood syndicators. With that in mind, he says, Raycom is developing its own shows and looking for broadcasters outside of Raycom markets to give them national reach. In this interview, Daugherty also talks about how business is pacing, mobile DTV, the FCC spectrum grab, virtual duopolies, the sharing of retrans revenue with the networks and more.

Alberto Cutié, the former priest and Hispanic radio-TV host and author known as Father Oprah, will debut on Fox O&Os this summer.

A group of syndie execs examine both sides of issues including short-run tests for new shows; whether barter-based deals would diminish as cash starts to free up; what the slim pickings in new shows this year means; and whether there are obvious replacements on the horizon for Regis Philbin, Oprah Winfrey and Mary Hart.

The syndicated weekend series from Raycom Media and ITV Studios America is expanding to a daily strip distributed by Debmar-Mercury.

The Debmar-Mercury talker is cleared in more than 70% of the U.S. with cash-plus-barter renewal deals.

On day two of its three-week test, the ratings for Debmar-Mercury’s The Fran Drescher Show declined 13% to a 0.7 rating/2 share, according to Nielsen Media Research, on Monday, Nov. 29.  That’s also a 13% drop from both the show’s lead-in and its year-ago time period average.

Stations from Fox, Sinclair, CBS, Hearst and other groups push clearances for 2011-12 past 70%, including nine of top-10 markets.