Final Season for ‘At the Movies’
By DAVE ITZKOFF
March 25, 2010
The balcony is closed, this time for good. After nearly three decades, “At the Movies,” the syndicated television program that introduced many viewers to the film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, as well as to film criticism in all its thorny and contentious glory, will cease production this summer.
Disney-ABC Domestic Television, which distributes “At the Movies,” and ABC Media Productions, which produces it, said in a statement late Wednesday that the current version of the show, which is hosted by Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune and A. O. Scott of The New York Times, would broadcast its last original episode the weekend of Aug. 14.
The demise of “At the Movies” was a blow to the legions of armchair reviewers it spawned in its many incarnations, some of whom went on to professional careers in criticism. “It’s impossible to overestimate the impact of what Gene and Roger did,” Mr. Scott, the co-chief film critic at The Times, said in a telephone interview. “Any one of us who’s doing this now, on any platform or in any medium, is following them.”
But the program’s cancellation is also a reflection of the rapid changes that the film and television industries have undergone in recent years — the proliferation of print and Web outlets that offer movie reviews as much as the declining value of “At the Movies” in Disney’s syndication portfolio.
“From a business perspective,” Disney said in its statement, “it became clear this weekly, half-hour, broadcast syndication series was no longer sustainable.”
Read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/arts/television/26cancel.html
By DAVE ITZKOFF
March 25, 2010
The balcony is closed, this time for good. After nearly three decades, “At the Movies,” the syndicated television program that introduced many viewers to the film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, as well as to film criticism in all its thorny and contentious glory, will cease production this summer.
Disney-ABC Domestic Television, which distributes “At the Movies,” and ABC Media Productions, which produces it, said in a statement late Wednesday that the current version of the show, which is hosted by Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune and A. O. Scott of The New York Times, would broadcast its last original episode the weekend of Aug. 14.
The demise of “At the Movies” was a blow to the legions of armchair reviewers it spawned in its many incarnations, some of whom went on to professional careers in criticism. “It’s impossible to overestimate the impact of what Gene and Roger did,” Mr. Scott, the co-chief film critic at The Times, said in a telephone interview. “Any one of us who’s doing this now, on any platform or in any medium, is following them.”
But the program’s cancellation is also a reflection of the rapid changes that the film and television industries have undergone in recent years — the proliferation of print and Web outlets that offer movie reviews as much as the declining value of “At the Movies” in Disney’s syndication portfolio.
“From a business perspective,” Disney said in its statement, “it became clear this weekly, half-hour, broadcast syndication series was no longer sustainable.”
Read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/arts/television/26cancel.html
