Several syndicators halted production on many of their first-run strips Tuesday because of the large-scale terrorist attacks.
Buena Vista's Live with Regis and Kelly was on the air live when first plane struck New York's World Trade Center. That forced show hosts Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa to discuss the tragedy impromptu for several minutes before they could cut away to newscasts on WABC-TV, which is where Live is taped. Live permanently broke away to WABC-TV coverage at 9:18 eastern standard time. At this point, Live will not be doing a show tomorrow and a decision will be made shortly about production for the rest of the week.
Buena Vista also stopped production on Iyanla, which is also New York-based, but it's unclear if the show will go back to work as usual Wednesday. That uncertainty about the rest of the week's production schedule was the story for a lot of the shows that shut down Tuesday, also including New York-based Rosie O'Donnell Show, Montel Williams, Change of Heart and Ananda. But since many of the series have episodes already in the can - fresh shows could still roll out this week.
However two newsmagazines, Extra and Entertainment Tonight were expected to produce original episodes Tuesday, but it's likely several stations could pre-empt these shows anyway with local or national newscasts. Many shows, produced outside of New York, were also stopping production Tuesday, including Judge Judy, Jerry Springer and Jenny Jones.
- Susanne Ault
In other developments, the entire cast of Everybody Loves Raymond canceled their promotional talk show tour this week, that would have drummed up buzz for both the upcoming launch of their show's new season and debut into syndication. All Raymond cast members were to appear on Rosie on Tuesday.
