Fox to launch national US morning show in 2007

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Fox Television Stations group
plans to launch a national weekday morning show on its
owned-and-operated affiliates next year, going up against the
last hour NBC’s “Today” show in some East Coast markets.

The show, to be produced by sister studio Twentieth
Television, will air live from New York featuring entertainment
and general-interest programming hosted by Mike Jerrick and
Juliet Huddy of cable TV’s Fox News Channel program “DaySide.”

The unnamed show is slated to debut in January and run from
9 a.m. to 10 a.m. weekdays in most markets, overlapping the
last hour of NBC’s top-rated morning show “Today” in some East
Coast markets, the News Corp.-owned companies said.

ABC’s second-ranked breakfast-time program “Good Morning
America” and CBS’s No. 3 “The Early Show” each end their
two-hour broadcasts at 9 a.m., so the new Fox show will not
compete with them.

Fox Television Stations broadcast group consists of 35 TV
stations in 26 markets reaching about 45 percent of U.S. homes.

A Twentieth Television executive said the new morning show
may be expanded in the future to the Fox broadcasting network
as a whole or be syndicated to other station groups.

Reuters/VNU