BET show on the move
BET is taking the 106th and Park out of "106 & Park."
Starting in late spring or early summer, the network's live music show will no longer be produced in Harlem but at the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street. Likewise "Rap City."
A BET rep says they've outgrown the leased Harlem facilities.
"BET Nightly News" and "BET Tonight With Ed Gordon" already have moved into the CBS complex; both networks are owned by Viacom.
(The Washington Post)
Revlon pays for play
The cosmetics maker Revlon is paying ABC millions of dollars to be featured as a foil for Susan Lucci's character in the soap opera "All My Children" over the next few months.
Lucci's character, Erica Kane, runs her own cosmetics company, Enchantment, in the daytime drama. In the story, top competitor Revlon tries to hire one of her employees, but Erica sends her daughter to become a corporate spy instead.
Revlon has promised to pay "multimillions" in advertising over the next several months in return for being featured in the show, said Sallie Schoneboom, ABC daytime spokeswoman. She wouldn't specify how much is being paid. A Revlon spokesman did not return a call seeking comment.
Television networks are looking for new ways to generate ad revenue in a tight market, and soap operas are trying to halt ratings declines. Schoneboom said the story idea came from the "All My Children" writers.
(Associated Press)
'Porgy' on TV
George Gershwin's "Porgy & Bess" is so entwined in American cultural fabric that it comes as a surprise that an American production has never been televised. Even more astonishing is that this tale of a black community in a tenement called Catfish Row has never been directed by an African American.
Both these deficiencies will be remedied in a "Live From Lincoln Center" broadcast of the opera tonight at 8 on WQED/WQEX, in a production by the New York City Opera.
Tazewell Thompson directs the opera, with conductor John DeMain leading soloists Marquita Lister (Bess), Alvy Powell (Porgy) and others.
(Andrew Druckenbrod, Post-Gazette Classical Music Critic)
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