Rob Owen stories, Page 16
TV Talk: Emily Giangreco exits WTAE
Emily Giangreco, who joined WTAE as a sports reporter/anchor in the summer of 2022 from a station in Austin, Texas, left her job working for the station Wednesday in what she characterized as a mutual decision. “I’m not really at liberty to discuss leaving WTAE right now,” she said by...
TV Talk: Emily Giangreco exits WTAE
Emily Giangreco, who joined WTAE as a sports reporter/anchor in the summer of 2022 from a station in Austin, Texas, left her job working for the station Wednesday in what she characterized as a mutual decision. “I’m not really at liberty to discuss leaving WTAE right now,” she said by...
TV Talk: Locally made thriller ‘Godless Children’ to stream; ‘The Jinx’ re-animates Durst’s trialVideo
For their first indie feature film, “Godless Children,” co-writers Kathleen Regan and Simon Barracchini opted for a story that starts like a Lifetime movie and ends, well, in a different genre altogether (no spoilers here). “We call it a dramatic thriller,” Regan said. “In Hollywood, you have to have two...
TV Q&A: Did SportsNet Pittsburgh move to a more expensive tier on Verizon’s FiOS TV?
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: Verizon’s FiOS TV has apparently removed SportsNet Pittsburgh, the MLB Network and perhaps a couple of other channels from its lower-priced packages. (Full disclosure: I...
TV Talk: CBS starts a fire of controversy cutting off Billy Joel, reschedules show
After promoting “Billy Joel: The 100th at Madison Square Garden – The Greatest Arena Run of All Time” for weeks, CBS blundered nationally by cutting off the program mid-“Piano Man” to go to late local newscasts. CBS released a statement saying, “A network programming timing error ended last night’s Billy...
TV Talk: Katherine Amenta out at WPXI-TV
After anchoring this morning’s newscasts, Katherine Amenta is no longer with WPXI-TV. Her contract is up in July and was not renewed, possibly due to budget cuts. Amenta could not be reached for comment; WPXI news director Scott Trabandt did not respond to queries but confirmed her departure in an...
TV Talk: Creator imagines ‘Dinner with the Parents’ set in Squirrel HillVideo
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Although it’s never said exactly where the new Amazon Freevee streaming comedy series “Dinner With the Parents” takes place, feel free to assume it’s Squirrel Hill, where series creator Jon Beckerman grew up. While the...
TV Talk: Voice actor appearing at Steel City Con credits his career to meeting a celebrity at PittVideo
There will be famous actors galore at Steel City Con, April 12-14 at the Monroeville Convention Center, including Geena Davis, Molly Ringwald, Ernie Hudson and the cast of “Beverly Hills 90210,” but one guest in particular returns to Pittsburgh with memories of the city as the place he met a...
TV Q&A: Did KDKA-TV’s Kristin Emery get married?
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 see the KDKA-TV weather girl Kristin Emery is wearing a ring on her left hand. Did she just get married? Curious minds like to...
TV Talk: Point Breeze’s Victoria Groce wins ‘Jeopardy!’ Invitational Tournament
Victoria Groce of Point Breeze won the “Jeopardy!” Invitational Tournament Tuesday night, including the grand prize of $100,000 and a place in the “Jeopardy!” Masters Tournament that’s expected to air on ABC in May. Groce, a frequent trivia quiz team competitor, first played “Jeopardy!” back in 2005 but more recently...
TV Talk: ‘American Rust’ showrunners on season 2 twists, season 3 prospects
NOTE: Spoilers for the end of season two of “American Rust” are included in this column. It’s been a little more than a week since the binge release of all 10 episodes of season two of filmed-in-Pittsburgh “American Rust: Broken Justice” and so far it’s unclear if Amazon’s Prime Video...
TV Talk: ‘Ripley’ is a bore; ‘Mary & George’ delightsVideo
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. In season two of HBO’s “The White Lotus,” poor Tanya McQuoid-Hunt (Jennifer Coolidge) begged for help from a ship’s captain, saying, “Please, these gays, they’re trying to murder me!” Plenty of characters might make a...
TV Talk: CMU grad checks into ‘Grey’s Anatomy’
It was appropriate that Meredith Grey’s voiceover narration in the March 28 episode of ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” (9 p.m. Thursdays, WTAE-TV) was all about the early transplant work of Pittsburgh’s Dr. Thomas Starzl because the episode also marked the arrival of a new long-term patient at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital...
TV Q&A: Where did WTAE sportscaster Ashley Liotus go?
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: Wondering about the sports department at Channel 4: I haven’t seen Ashley Liotus in quite a while. She often covered the Steelers throughout the week,...
TV Talk: National cooking show comes to WQED-TVVideo
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Fans of Chris Fennimore’s “QED Cooks” shows take note: There’s a new national cooking talk show coming to WQED-TV at 12:30 p.m. on Saturdays beginning April 6. Chef Joel Gamoran hosts “Homemade Live!,” a weekly...
TV Talk: Filmed-in-Pittsburgh ‘Kingstown’ gets season 3 premiere dateVideo
Often streaming series are in the can for months before they show up on a streaming service — “American Rust,” which premiered on Amazon’s Prime Video earlier today, was locked in August 2023 — but post-strikes Paramount+ is really pushing the third season of filmed-in-Pittsburgh “Mayor of Kingstown,” announcing a...
TV Talk: ‘American Rust’ makes case for renewal with a twisty 2nd seasonVideo
The first season of filmed-in-Pittsburgh “American Rust” started too slow and painted most of its characters and the fictional town of Buell, Fayette County, with the same turbid gray. It’s no wonder viewers tuned out and Showtime canceled the show. But even in that first season, “American Rust” found its...
TV Q&A: Why did ‘9-1-1’ move from Fox to ABC?
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: Why did 9-1-1 move from Fox to ABC? Did Fox simply not want the show any longer, or was there more to it? — Xavier,...
TV Talk: CMU grad John Wells sets Noah Wyle medical drama in Pittsburgh; former WTAE forecaster exits TV
John Wells, a 1979 Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama grad, will executive produce “THE PITT,” a Pittsburgh-set medical drama to star his “ER” alum Noah Wyle that received a straight-to-series order from streaming service Max. R. Scott Gemmill, another “ER” grad, will serve as showrunner of the series that...
TV Talk: Pittsburgher ‘The Chase’ star back on ‘Jeopardy!’ 20 years later; ‘PTL’ turns 20Video
Victoria Groce of Point Breeze first competed on the daytime game show “Jeopardy!” in 2005, winning $23,801 over two episodes just before she moved to Pittsburgh, where her husband works at Carnegie Mellon as a software engineer. She previously worked at the University of Pittsburgh in various roles, including as...
TV Talk: ‘Game of Thrones’ showrunners launch ‘3 Body Problem;’ KDKA-TV adds reporterVideo
For their first series after showrunning HBO’s mammoth hit “Game of Thrones,” writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (with Alexander Woo, “The Terror,” “True Blood”) adapt Chinese sci-fi author Liu Cixin’s “3 Body Problem” for Netflix and the result is a show that begins semi-intriguing and by its fourth episode...
TV Talk: ‘American Rust’ season 2 set largely in PittsburghVideo
For its second season, the filmed-in-Pittsburgh drama “American Rust” moves from Showtime to Amazon’s Prime Video. The show’s setting also shifts. In its first season “American Rust” was set almost entirely in fictional Buell, Fayette County, but for the second season, the show splits its time between Buell and Pittsburgh,...
TV Q&A: Why are some stations’ digital subchannels on cable but not others?
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: Why are some of the local stations’ subchannels carried on cable (Comcast) but others are not? I can’t see any rhyme or reason and I...
TV Talk: WQED-TV profiles Pittsburgh’s broadcasting pioneer women
As part of its lineup of Women’s History Month programming, WQED-TV will broadcast the half-hour “mini doc” “Broadcast Pioneers” at 8 p.m. March 21. The program is a packaged compilation of previously released short feature stories on four women who made significant contributions to broadcasting in Western Pennsylvania, including kids...
TV Talk: Producers explain why ‘Young Sheldon’ is endingVideo
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a weekly viewing tip. BURBANK, Calif. – “The Big Bang Theory” prequel series “Young Sheldon” (8 p.m. Thursdays, KDKA-TV) will end its seven-season run on CBS in May. Why now, aside from the economic realities that after a TV series hits its...
