Rob Owen stories, Page 13
TV Q&A: Which reporters/anchors are pregnant at WPXI?
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: Is everyone at WPXI-TV pregnant? — Rodney, via email Rob: Not sure about everyone — assume that would come as a surprise to the station’s...
TV Talk: HBO’s ‘Chimp Crazy’: A better, more entertaining ‘Tiger King’Video
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. If you liked Netfllix’s “Tiger King,” odds are you’ll love HBO’s “Chimp Crazy” (10 p.m. Sundays, Aug. 18-Sept. 8) from the same director, Eric Goode. If, like me, you thought “Tiger King” was ultimately a...
TV Talk: WTAE’s Ashley Liotus achieves goal of full-time sports reportingVideo
Ashley Liotus was a freelance reporter off and on at WTAE beginning in 2022, but in July she joined Channel 4 full-time, anchoring weekends and reporting/fill-in anchoring weekdays. Liotus, 33, grew up in the South Hills and graduated from Baldwin High School in 2009. She graduated from Penn State in...
TV Q&A: What went wrong with ‘The Bear’ this season?
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: Just wondering what your reaction is to the current “The Bear” season? After last year’s great series, I find this season to be boring and...
TV Talk: Pittsburgh native Jeff Goldblum hosts ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’; Mass. woman helms a ‘Neighborhood’ reboot
Pittsburgh native Jeff Goldblum will guest host ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (11:35 p.m., WTAE-TV) Monday-Thursday this week. Goldblum’s guests tonight will be Mark Wahlberg, Rob Delaney and musical guest Grace Bowers & The Hodge Podge. On Tuesday Goldblum will welcome John Cena and Omar Sy. Goldblum will also perform with...
TV Talk: ‘SEAL Team’ embarks on final missionsVideo
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. The former CBS drama “SEAL Team,” starring David Boreanaz as Navy SEAL team leader Jason Hayes, streams the first episode of its seventh and final season Aug. 11 on Paramount+. In a Zoom interview late...
TV Talk: New weather, sports personnel arrive at KDKA-TVVideo
New, young faces on local newscasts are common on Pittsburgh TV these days, but it’s unusual to have back-to-back arrivals in weather and sports — as viewers have seen in recent weeks at KDKA-TV with the debuts of meteorologist Trey Fulbright and sports anchor/reporter Cassidy Wood. Trey Fulbright Fulbright, 24,...
TV Q&A: Do anchors go home between 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts?
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: I’ve noticed that most/all of the 6 p.m. news anchors will also be on their respective 11 p.m. broadcasts for the local news. Do those...
TV Talk: What it’s like to attend a taping of CBS’s ‘After Midnight’Video
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — When you sign up to attend the taping of a late-night show, you never know what guests you’ll get. Last month for a taping of CBS’s “After Midnight” (12:35 a.m. weekdays, KDKA-TV),...
TV Talk: WQED-TV announces new Rick Sebak series; regional Emmy nominations releasedVideo
It’s been a year since Jason Jedlinski became president and CEO of WQED-TV and at a board of directors meeting Thursday he announced a new series of Rick Sebak shorts that will be compiled into quarterly prime-time programs for linear television, a similar format used by WQED’s “Cartoon Academy,” which...
TV Talk: ‘Kingstown’ ends its 3rd season
Paramount+’s filmed-in-Pittsburgh drama “Mayor of Kingstown” ends its third season with guns blazing. Streaming Sunday, it’s an episode overflowing with gunfire, including a massive shootout filmed on the 16th Street Bridge in Downtown Pittsburgh in mid-May. But the bloody mayhem is not confined to that scene. Multiple characters wind up...
TV Q&A: Will Gibbs ever return to ‘NCIS’?
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: “NCIS” is my favorite TV program and Mark Harmon is my favorite actor. Will he ever return to “NCIS”? — Grace, via email Rob: Recall...
TV Talk: Netflix’s ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ explores Beaver County severed head caseVideo
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Terry Dunn Meurer, who co-created and has executive produced “Unsolved Mysteries” since its first iteration on NBC in 1987, said a Beaver County-set episode that premieres this week is one of her “all-time favorite” unsolved...
TV Talk: Pittsburgh’s public access cable channel PCTV to shutter
PCTV, public access cable channel Pittsburgh Community Television, will cease operations by the end of August due to a dearth of funding. “The continuing decline in cable subscribers and the changing media landscape has had a devastating impact on our funding and our viability,” PCTV executive director John Patterson wrote...
TV Talk: Michael Keaton directs, stars in ‘Knox Goes Away’; local news stalwarts get Emmy honorsVideo
Pittsburgh native Michael Keaton’s second directorial effort, “Knox Goes Away,” is a welcome, character-driven tonic. It’s a small movie more concerned with character and relationship stories than it is with big-budget thrills or epic set pieces. And that’s OK. Streaming July 26 on Max (linear HBO debut at 8 p.m....
TV Q&A: What happened to a WPXI-TV news anchor?
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: What happened to Gordon Loesch on WPXI-TV? I’ve noticed he is no longer on as the morning anchor. — Dave, via Facebook Rob: Loesch posted...
TV Talk: Filmed-in-Pittsburgh ‘American Rust’ canceled
Amazon’s Prime Video will not renew the filmed-in-Pittsburgh drama series “American Rust,” whose second season was largely set in Pittsburgh, for a third season. The show’s first two seasons were filmed in Western Pennsylvania. Jeff Daniels starred in “American Rust” as the police chief of fictional Buell, Fayette County, who...
TV Talk: ‘Snowpiercer’ chugs on a new track to AMC for final seasonVideo
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. There’s probably been no series to live a more tortured, pushed-and-pulled existence than “Snowpiercer,” which returns for its final, fourth 10-episode season at 9 p.m. July 21 on AMC and AMC+ (seasons one through three...
TV Talk: ‘Shōgun,’ ‘The Bear’ sweep Emmy nominations
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Though it may seem like viewers just watched the Emmys — the strike-delayed January telecast honored shows from the 2022-23 TV season — the ceremony will return to its usual September airing as it recognizes programs that aired/streamed between June 2023 and May 2024. FX’s “Shōgun” took...
TV Q&A: Did Celina Pompeani Mathison leave ‘Pittsburgh Today Live’?
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: What happened to Bob Pompeani’s daughter who used to always be on Channel 2 news? Did she retire or get another job? — Bonnie, via...
TV Talk at TCA: PBS previews ‘Moonflower Murders’; filmed-in-Pittsburgh ‘Deliverance’ trailer released
PASADENA, Calif. — This fall “Masterpiece Mystery!” debuts “Moonflower Murders” (9 p.m. Sept. 15-Oct. 20, WQED-TV), a follow-up to 2022’s “Magpie Murders.” Book editor Susan Ryeland (Lesley Manville, “The Crown”) is living in Crete with long-time boyfriend Andreas (Alexandros Logothetis) but a murder at a British hotel eight years earlier...
TV Talk: Chariot races, gladiator battles fill ‘Those About to Die’Video
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. The next few weeks should bring new subscribers to Peacock with its wall-to-wall coverage of the Summer Olympics from Paris beginning July 26, so the streaming service will use those increased eyeballs watching to also...
TV Talk: Pittsburgh native joins CBS’s ‘Big Brother’
Pittsburgh native Leah Peters, a 26-year-old “VIP cocktail server” living in Miami, is among the competitors on this year’s 26th season of “Big Brother” (9 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday beginning this week, KDKA-TV). Peters is one of 16 initial houseguests who will, for the first time, have the power...
TV Talk at TCA: ‘Elevated’ procedurals reign this fall, including Pittsburgh native Zachary Quinto’s showVideo
PASADENA, Calif. — Procedural dramas — episodic shows that tell a story with a beginning, middle and end in one hour — were TV staples from the 1950s through the 1990s. In the ‘80s, serialized dramas with ongoing storylines began to emerge with “Hill Street Blues,” “St. Elsewhere,” and later...
TV Talk at TCA: ‘Tracker,’ ‘Elsbeth’ prepare 2nd seasons; ‘Young Sheldon’ spin-off to premiere
PASADENA, Calif. — CBS enters the 2024-25 TV season this fall from a position of strength thanks to the successful launches of “Tracker” and “Elsbeth” earlier this year. Justin Hartley stars in “Tracker” as a for-hire hunk who tracks down missing people. Hartley describes his Colter Shaw character as a...
