TV Talk: KDKA’s ‘High Q’ renamed for 25th season; film workers stage market fundraiser
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It started as “Hometown High Q,” then went by “KDKA High Q,” but for its 25th season that begins airing this weekend at 11 a.m Saturdays, the show will be titled “KD Quiz.”
In his fourth season as the show’s host, KDKA meteorologist Ray Petelin said there will be more than 40 shows in the 2023-24 season and 81 teams will compete — and they’ll continue to appear on the show virtually as they have since the onset of the covid-19 pandemic.
“We found that as great as it is inside the studio, you’ll notice as soon as the first minutes of the show when we’re meeting these kids how many activities they are involved in,” Petelin said in a Zoom interview late last month. “We found that being remote or virtual makes it easier for these kids to actually fit in a competition within all the other extracurricular activities that they have. Plus, it expands our reach out to schools that normally wouldn’t be able to make that kind of trip Downtown (to the KDKA studios) to do a show.”
Petelin said he’s most eager for viewers to see updates to the show, including new rounds and new question formats.
Instead of four rounds, this new season will feature five rounds beginning with Player’s Choice, where a random generator assigns which team gets to choose from three categories first.
“It offers up more variability right from the start,” Petelin said.
In Knowledge Check, teams are asked general knowledge questions followed by a Speed Round where each team has 60 seconds to answer as many questions as they can from a list of 10 questions.
Math gets its own category – no pens, paper, calculators or abacuses allowed – and the final category is “More or Less” where teams get up to three clues. If they get the correct answer on the first clue, the team earns 30 points. If they get it wrong, they lose 30 points. If they ask for the second clue and make a guess, they earn or lose 20 points. On the third clue, the team earns or loses 10 points.
“That’s our final round, and a lot of strategy is going to have to come into play with that because these point totals usually are really close,” Petelin said. “You’re gonna see some quick thinking, strategy and probably people at home saying, ‘No, no, no!’ It’s like a sports atmosphere and clock management, but you’re just score managing.”
In addition to new episodes on KDKA-TV, Petelin said, game show fan/KDKA digital producer CJ Malm, who has Marc Summers’ “Double Dare” podium in his collection of game show ephemera, goes through old “High Q” episodes and picks out vintage shows to stream on CBS New Pittsburgh after a new episode debuts on the linear channel. He particularly seeks out archival episodes featuring a student competitor who has grown up to be a student sponsor of a “KD Quiz” team.
Petelin said a new graphics package will debut with the new season, with his role again filmed in KDKA’s Studio B (without the fireplace that had once been part of the show’s set).
Local crew fundraiser
In the wake of the writers’ and actors’ strikes, Pittsburgh production crew members who work on movies and TV shows that film in Southwestern Pennsylvania will stage a fundraiser, the Pittsburgh Film Workers Solidarity Market, selling art, crafts, resale items and movie memorabilia 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 21 at Cinelease Studios, 150 Thorn Hill Road, Warrendale, Pa. 15086.
The market will feature 70 vendors, demonstration booths, live special effects makeup demonstrations, studio tours, film equipment exhibits and food trucks. The event is open to the public and admission and on-site parking are free.
WQED annual meeting
At its annual board of directors meeting last week, new WQED president Jason Jedlinski said the nonprofit “must become more than a broadcaster” as more people cut the cable cord. He said WQED must go from “creating content for our audiences to creating content with our communities. … Rather than saying we’ll do less, we have an opportunity to say how can we empower our neighbors — students, community leaders, pastors, volunteers, rabbis, you name it – and give them tools, much as WQED does through the Film Academy that was formerly Steeltown … and the platform to tell their own stories.”
Jedlinski reiterated the notion of WQED partnering with other community groups to create experiences and gave two examples: “What if we offered our members boat tours with Pittsburgh History and Rick (Sebak) is narrating, describing things as you go? What if we offered bus tours on Saturday to young girls and students interested in careers in science and technology to see Robotics Row, the startups coming out of Carnegie Mellon and elsewhere?”
“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel,” Jedlinski continued. “We don’t need to start it ourselves, we don’t need to conceive of it ourselves but it’s [about] expanding partnerships to say, how can we help? … What might we do with our platforms, our voices, our tools, our equipment to help you tell your own story?”
Jedlinski also said WQED needs to “be in a footing where there is no PBS or no Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Nothing we wish for, nothing we want, nothing I hope we see in my lifetime but that we are on a trajectory where if (PBS) doesn’t exist, WQED can still continue — just as it existed before PBS — and still be providing valuable services and impacting lives in Allegheny County and across the region.”
New Tree of Life doc
A 40-minute abbreviated version of a new 80-minute documentary about the 2018 attack on Squirrel Hill’s Tree of Life synagogue, “Repairing the World: Stories from the Tree of Life,” will be shown at a free community screening at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 17 at McConomy Auditorium, Carnegie Mellon University, followed by a panel discussion featuring WQED host Minette Seate, film producer Patrice O’Neil, survivor Andrea Wedner, KDKA-TV reporter Meghan Schiller and former Urban League president Esther Bush. Register for the free event at repairingtheworldscreening.eventbrite.com.
The full film will air on WQED-TV at 9 p.m. Oct. 26.
Wiest exits ‘Kingstown’
Dianne Wiest, whose character’s life hung in the balance at the end of season two of filmed-in-Pittsburgh “Mayor of Kingstown,” will not be back for the show’s third season.
Strike fallout
Fallout from the dual writers’ and actors’ strikes will come out in drips and drabs in the weeks and months ahead.
Writers are voting to ratify their new contract this week – it will surely be approved by the membership — and writers rooms for “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Criminal Minds: Evolution,” “9-1-1,” “Quantum Leap,” “Family Guy,” “Bob’s Burgers and “The Simpsons” reopened Monday with more shows restarting work this week and next, including “Yellowjackets,” “Ghosts,” “NCIS,” “Fire Country,” “The Neighborhood,” “Young Sheldon,” “The Cleaning lady,” “Animal Control,” “Alert” and “Abbott Elementary.” SAG-AFTRA resumed negotiations with the AMPTP on Monday.
ABC announced Friday that comedy “Home Economics” has been canceled after three seasons. ABC drama series “High Potential,” starring Kaitlin Olson as a single mother with a brilliant mind who helps police solve crimes, will be delayed until late 2024.
Channel surfing
“The Graham Norton Show” returns with new episodes weekly at 11 p.m. Thursdays beginning this week on BBC America, AMC+ and Acorn TV. … CBS’s “The Talk” (2 p.m. weekdays, KDKA-TV) will return with new episodes Monday, Oct. 9.