eli@uw-june.UUCP (01/17/84)
Ellerbee's appearance of LNw/DL struck me as almost a billboard posting of what's-the-current-state-of-affairs of Overnight. I would guess that a large number of Overnight viewers (excuse me, ex-Overnight viewers) are also LNw/DL fans, and so it turned out to be an appropriate forum for disseminating info about Overnight. The message I got was "it's still not too late." Certainly one has to keep a very optimistic attitude to believe that, but... As to Linda Ellerbee being more in the forefront than Bill Shechner (sp?), I would guess this has to do with her being there at the creation of the show, and maybe being just a touch more forceful and sardonic in her editorials. ... uw-june!eli
keesan@bbncca.ARPA (Morris Keesan) (01/17/84)
------------------------- > Incidentally, I am told that co-host Bill (and I won't even attempt to spell > his name) [Shechner or Schechner -- MMK]. . . 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 [Furuta] Well, an obvious reason is that Ellerbee had seniority. She was with the show from its beginning to its cancellation. Schechner joined the show after Lloyd Dobyns left for earlier pastures, and after Dobyns and Ellerbee had determined to a major extent the direction and "personality" of the show. I believe that Ellerbee also had a larger off-screen role than Schechner (hazy recollection from watching credits showing Ellerbee as something like "news director"). -- Morris M. Keesan {decvax,linus,wjh12}!bbncca!keesan keesan @ BBN-UNIX.ARPA
furuta@uw-june (Richard Furuta) (01/21/84)
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 ...decvax!uw-beaver!uw-june!furuta (uucp) ...ucbvax!lbl-csam!uw-beaver!uw-june!furuta or Furuta@Washington (ARPAnet)