Martha Stewart Living Lives On

By
( )
published

While stations are pulling the plug on Martha Stewart Living right and left, King World plans to stick with the show.

"King World Productions will continue to distribute Martha Stewart Living to local stations that want to continue to broadcast the program," the company said in a statement Tuesday. It  would not comment beyond that.

So far, Viacom, which also owns King World, has pulled the show from its CBS and UPN stations. Gannett Broadcasting's KSDK-TV St. Louis, an NBC affiliate, also has removed the show from its lineup.

King World distributes the show for a fee, but Stewart's company, Martha Stewart Living OmniMedia, sells the national advertising. That means that while losing the show would mean losing the time slots, Martha Stewart Living isn't one of King World's biggest revenue drivers.

In light of Stewart's legal troubles, stations all season have been running the show in late-night time slots.

Viacom-owned WCBS-TV in New York is replacing the show with a second run of Entertainment Tonight, while viewers at Viacom-owned KCBS-TV in Los Angeles have been watching Buena Vista's The Wayne Brady Show.

Paige Albiniak
Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.