Tribune Broadcasting will launch a three-week test of Warner Bros.’ Ice & Coco in New York, Miami, Houston and Norfolk, Va., starting Monday. The talk show, featuring married couple Ice-T and Coco Austin, aired over the summer on Fox stations.
Coco Austin tweeted on Thursday: "Exciting news! @IceandCocoTalk returns Monday Nov 9th, for a Fall Fling on @pix11 @sflcw @cw39houston @wgntcw27!"
Fox was expected to pick up the show, which performed well in the test, but instead went with NBCUniversal’s new daytime variety show, Harry, starring Harry Connick, Jr., for next fall. NBCU had been developing Harry for its owned and operated stations, but they passed and Fox snapped the show up after seeing the pilot.
While the test will run over three weeks, it will include only 12 episodes because three of last summer’s episodes were too Fox-focused for Tribune, insiders said. Tribune is interested in seeing whether the show performs better in this second test because levels of people watching television are higher now than they are in the summer.
Still, it’s a long shot for Warner Bros., which wants to give the show — something that looked like a sure sell after last summer — one more chance.
