NATPE Moves to Mandalay Bay
The National Association of Television Program Executives is switching from the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas to the Mandalay Bay, with the convention planned for Jan. 25-27, 2005. The show will also be held there in 2006.
Mandalay Bay provides NATPE with both a conference floor and hotel suites. Signing the contract is a win for NATPE, which had wanted to stay in Las Vegas but wasn't sure it could get the right deal. Las Vegas is popular in January, and convention space is in short supply.
NBC Into Total Health
NBC Enterprises and NBC News this fall will premiere a new weekly half-hour syndicated series titled Your Total Health. It will be hosted by NBC News Correspondent Hoda Kotb, a six-year veteran of NBC News. Dr. David Agus, an oncologist at Los Angeles' Cedar-Sinai Medical Center, will be medical consultant.
Your Total Health will focus on cutting-edge health and medical issues that interest consumers. "There is so much important health information out there," says NBC News President Neal Shapiro, "and not always enough places on the network to put it."
The series also leaves space in each half-hour for local stations to insert stories relevant to their communities. NBC News will produce Your Total Health, and NBC Enterprises will distribute it.
A Regis Spike
Who knew that Regis Philbin, the 72-year-old host of Buena Vista's Live With Regis and Kelly and ABC's Super Millionaire, would be almost as big a draw for viewers of Twentieth's On Air With Ryan Seacrest as teen idol Britney Spears?
Philbin's March 18 appearance on Seacrest's daytime show drew a 1.4 household rating, according to Nielsen, the show's second-best performance after Spears hit a 1.6 on Feb. 11. Janet Jackson performs live this Friday and is likely to give the show a ratings spike as well.
Regis's showing drove On Air up 10% week-to-week, to score a 1.1 in the week ended March 21. That wasn't the greatest week for most syndicated shows, mainly because of preemptions for CBS's airing of the annual NCAA basketball tournament.
