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MDA: Jerry Lewis Out As Chairman, Telethon Host

Gotta love how MDA drums up the promotional spin right at the top of the above document:

"The MDA Telethon, an American television institution, is seen each Labor Day weekend by more than 40 million viewers, an audience comparable to that of the Academy Awards, and greater than that of American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, the Emmys and the Golden Globes."

This year, without Jerry Lewis' involvement, they'd be lucky if they'd even get ratings comparable to American Idol - with Brian Dunkelman co-hosting!

By the way, they list their Elmira, NY affiliate as "WENY 12." Unless I missed something, WENY is on Channel 36; Channel 12 is WBNG.
 
DToTheJ said:
Gotta love how MDA drums up the promotional spin right at the top of the above document:

"The MDA Telethon, an American television institution, is seen each Labor Day weekend by more than 40 million viewers, an audience comparable to that of the Academy Awards, and greater than that of American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, the Emmys and the Golden Globes."

This year, without Jerry Lewis' involvement, they'd be lucky if they'd even get ratings comparable to American Idol - with Brian Dunkelman co-hosting!

By the way, they list their Elmira, NY affiliate as "WENY 12." Unless I missed something, WENY is on Channel 36; Channel 12 is WBNG.
Click to expand...

With the advent of cable & satellite television (and its numerous channels) plus add to that the loss of Jerry Lewis as host, the last official holiday of summer, Hurricane Irene and millions of people without electricity, and the reduction of hours, the MDA telethon is lucky if it makes half of what it did last year.
 
Interesting; KZJO 22 is playing the telethon instead of the normal KCPQ. I guess 13 wants to keep Steve Wilkos and Jerry Springer reruns going through Labor Day! IIRC, this would be 22's first year w/ the telethon, before KCPQ picked it up in '87, KSTW aired it in Seattle.

P.S.: Since this thread is about the telethon, will a results spoiler be wrote on this thread? I'm just wondering. I'd be surprised if $15,000,000 is raised in six hours.

-crainbebo
 
crainbebo said:
Interesting; KZJO 22 is playing the telethon instead of the normal KCPQ. I guess 13 wants to keep Steve Wilkos and Jerry Springer reruns going through Labor Day!
Click to expand...

Or rather, KCPQ would rather show "Animation Domination" reruns, shunting the telethon to sister KZJO, as they have nothing to lose on Sunday nights. Don't forget that the new format telethon will be seen Sunday night only, 6PM to Midnight local time.
 
Checking Sunday's schedules, I noticed that WGN America will be carrying the telethon live, 6PM to 12 Midnight ET. Is this just for WGN America, or will WGN-TV in Chicago also carry the telethon live, from 5PM to 11PM CT? I always thought all stations outside of ET will delay the telethon to 6PM to Midnight local time.

Any other stations outside of Eastern Time carrying it live, as opposed to delaying it?
 
azumanga said:
crainbebo said:
Interesting; KZJO 22 is playing the telethon instead of the normal KCPQ. I guess 13 wants to keep Steve Wilkos and Jerry Springer reruns going through Labor Day!
Click to expand...

Or rather, KCPQ would rather show "Animation Domination" reruns, shunting the telethon to sister KZJO, as they have nothing to lose on Sunday nights. Don't forget that the new format telethon will be seen Sunday night only, 6PM to Midnight local time.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info azumanga. I did not know the telethon would be shown Sunday night only. KCPQ ever since I can remember has done only about eight hours of the older 21 hour telethon, between 9am-5pm.

-crainbebo
 
azumanga said:
Any other stations outside of Eastern Time carrying it live, as opposed to delaying it?
Click to expand...
Or, for that matter, are any stations in the East delaying it? I noticed our affiliate in Fort Wayne, WANE-TV is delaying it until 8 pm and will run it until 2 am to fit in News & 60 Minutes. Interesting, considering that WANE-TV has run the entire telethon in the several years they have aired it.

As this is a CBS station, they could certainly show US Open Tennis, but they show the telethon instead. It makes me wonder if some of the longer tenured affiliates will delay it as well. I'm sure the new affiliates won't; it's probably in the affiliation agreement.
 
azumanga said:
I read on Wikipedia's page for the telethon that the MDA has set a goal for pledges at $120 million. However, the source given has made no mention of any goals for pledges.

Is MDA's goal of making that much money in so little time true?
Click to expand...
[Said in a Charlie Sheen manner] DREAMING!!!!! :)

Looking at our local schedule, I'm not sure if this is a misprint or not, but WBNA has the telethon scheduled Sunday afternoon from 2:30 p.m. until 6 p.m! How can this happen when the telethon is to START at 6 p.m.? Has it been TAPED to appear as it's live? Is it all just a farce? My thought on a final total, with the backlash from the Lewis "firing/retirement" is around $20 million. I bet the glorious leaders who made this decision will continue to take their salary over meeting the needs of the children.

Here is the schedule I had mentioned:

http://titantv.com/programming/chan...b4-1860-4b5c-89fd-a67c13e95011/date/20110904/
 
KyDXIn said:
Looking at our local schedule, I'm not sure if this is a misprint or not, but WBNA has the telethon scheduled Sunday afternoon from 2:30 p.m. until 6 p.m! How can this happen when the telethon is to START at 6 p.m.? Has it been TAPED to appear as it's live? Is it all just a farce?
Click to expand...

Actually, WBKI is the "Love Network" affiliate for Louisville, and checking with Zap2it's schedule, WBKI is indeed showing the telethon early before everyone else, questioning the fact if the telethon will be live at all, instead of the "6PM to Midnight" schedule that the MDA is hoping for. And that schedule is already beginning to show cracks -- WGN will be showing the telethon from 5PM to Midnight CT. And WANE in Fort Wayne is delaying the show until 8PM, running it until 2AM ET, so they can show the 6PM news and 60 Minutes.

If you live in Louisville, could you do me a favor? Could you post the final national tote here as soon as it's announced on WBKI? That way, when the tote is announced on other ET stations before midnight, if they both match, I'm calling shenannigans.

OhioMediaWatch said:
Talk about a Soviet-style purge!

http://www.mda.org/telethon/history.html

That's right, the MDA's own "history of the telethon" web page does not mention Jerry Lewis ONCE.
Click to expand...

Not to mention that they are no longer referring "Jerry's Kids" as such.

It could have been worse -- they could have written the fact that Dean Martin was host of the telethon.

I just hope the MDA hasn't hired goons to wipe the history off of Wikipedia and fan sites -- I have caught some instances on Wikipedia of Presidents and CEOs of companies insisting that the history went their way, not what actually happened.
 
Well, I saw the clips from the 2010 telecast that KITV/Honolulu aired during their newscasts, as they are the Love Network member for Hawaii. It'll be interesting to see how local host Pamela Young will maintain her composure not seeing Jerry's face next to the tote board because she didn't have much of a cheery look when she mentioned the telethon during her nightly newscasts.
 
azumanga said:
Not to mention that they are no longer referring "Jerry's Kids" as such.
Click to expand...

That's one thing, to move on from that phrase now that he's no longer hosting.

But to have three paragraphs with not one historical mention that he was the long-time host...and later, listing roughly every B, C and Z-list celebrity who has shown up...
 
only1moore said:
Well, I saw the clips from the 2010 telecast that KITV/Honolulu aired during their newscasts, as they are the Love Network member for Hawaii. It'll be interesting to see how local host Pamela Young will maintain her composure not seeing Jerry's face next to the tote board because she didn't have much of a cheery look when she mentioned the telethon during her nightly newscasts.
Click to expand...

That being said, are there any stations still using their old tote boards with Jerry's face and signature, for one reason or another?
 
azumanga said:
That being said, are there any stations still using their old tote boards with Jerry's face and signature, for one reason or another?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be surprised to see Jerry's tote board in the local cutaways on WBNX/55 here in the Cleveland market...
 
Wasn't most of the cutaway segments pre-recorded anyways to begin with? The only live stuff that was on the telethon that I know of was Jerry Lewis and company in Las Vegas.

I will also take a guess that anything associated with Jerry (the drum roll to the tote board, What The World Needs Now Is Love Sweet Love, You'll Never Walk Alone) will not be allowed. I also believe that there won't be a mention about Jerry Lewis himself on the entire telethon which probably now is a pre-recorded thing with local stations cutting in live.
 
WCVB Boston is not airing it until 7 - they're in the middle of the ABC NASCAR race right now and then will have Newscenter 5 and World News Tonight.
 
In the Metroplex, KTXA Fort Worth started the telethon at 5 P.M. CDT with a local segment and is still completely local. WGN America is also all-local (to Chicago). KTXA has volunteers to call, but the only number listed is the national 800 number.

This leads me to agree that the national feed when it starts is probably completely taped.
 
The 'thon is being streamed via livestream this year. The bad part is that it stutters and crashes (Real did the same). The hosts (Alison, Jan, Nancy and Lythgoe) did take some time after the opening titles to pay a nice, proper tribute to, um ... "HIM."

One more thing, the show appears to be in HD.
 
KPRC Local 2 in Houston (An NBC Station) has just started its 46th year of carrying The MDA Labor Day Telethon, and it will carry all 6 hours-With a break for News at 10:00PM.
 
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