Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
I heard from two solid sources that All News 106.7 is giving up any semblance of all news and will soon start calling itself NewsRadio 106.7.
The Cumulus station dropped its evening and overnight news staffs today and will start airing talk shows. The Braves will frequently pre-empt whatever evening options they have for the time being.
UPDATE: On Monday, the station confirmed the news with a press release. It will air a local talk show in the evenings when the Braves aren't on. The John Batchelor Show will air from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., followed by Cumulus’ Red Eye Radio from 1 to 5 a.m. All news on weekdays will be limited to 5 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. The release did not say what weekends will look like.
The station's new 8:30 a.m. to noon host Michael Graham starts Monday. This means the all-news portion of the station will now be primarily morning and afternoon drive. When it launched in May, 2012, it started as a 24-hour news station.
Earlier this week, I also reported that news director Jennifer Perry is leaving the station but I am not sure what she is going to do. Her boss Randall Bloomquist said it's outside of radio.
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Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
I"m moderating two free panels Saturday, May 10 for the Screen Actors Guild Foundation featuring actors from two shows shot in Atlanta: Sundance's "Rectify" followed by Lifetime's "Devious Maids," two very different dramas.
The events will be held for free at the Digital Media Center of SCAD in the former 11 Alive space behind WSB off West Peachthree.
The "Rectify" screening and Q&A starts at 3 p.m. They will screen the first episode of season one, where Georgian Daniel Holden is released from death row after 19 years back to his small fictional town of Paulie (set in the real small town of Griffin.). This will be followed by the panel with virtually all the major actors:
Aden Young, Abigail Spencer, Adelaide Clemens, J. Smith-Cameron, Luke Kirby, Clayne Crawford, Bruce McKinnon, JD Evermore, Jake Austin Walker
This will be followed at 6:30 p.m. with a screening and Q&A with four lead actresses of "Devious Maids," a frothy soap featuring five Latino actresses as leads and created by "Desperate Housewives" mastermind Marc Cherry. They will screen the first episode of season two. The four actresses will be Roselyn Sanchez, Dania Ramirez, Ana Ortiz and Edy Ganem.
You can rsvp@sagfoundation.org if you want to go though there may be enough spare seats that if you just show up, I can't imagine they'd kick you out.
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Unfortunately, for Jeopardy fans rooting for out two local representatives in the final 15 of the Tournament of Decades, both were eliminated this week.
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Robin Carroll, who designs instructional tests for realtors and lives in Marietta, struggled during this past Monday's episode and finished with $0 after betting her third-place $5,200 pot in Final Jeopardy but coming up short. Carroll, who has won more than $250,000 from past games on the show, said she was just a little off getting to the buzzer. (At this level, against elite players, timing the buzzer is incredibly important.).
If you watch her episode, you'll see her frequently pressing the button in frustration.
"I was getting very frustrated," she said. "I was just having an off day. If you can't get your rhythm, it's tough."
Ultimately, Carroll said, "I was in between two buzz saws. That's just the way it happens."
Even if she had gotten the Final Jeopardy questions, she still would have ended up in third and missed the wild-card slot.
Still, she loved the experience and enjoyed hanging out with other "Jeopardy" players again.
Mark Dawson of Chamblee, who has won more than $340,000 on the show, on Friday's episode played a stronger game than Robin did on Monday but fell short as well. He was competing against two strong rivals Colby Burnett and Chuck Forrest, both of whom made it to the top 9 semi-final rounds to air next week. Chuck won the game while Colby became a wild-card opponent.
Dawson finished with $8,600, which placed him just one spot shy of making the semifinals. (Technically, there were five winners and four wild cards, based on how much money they finished with.) He was an alternate and said he felt great in practice rounds but nobody got ill or had to drop out. So in the end, he had to watch the rest of the tournament in the audience.
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
He said he wasn't 100% going in, partly because his show taped last so he sat in the green room for a long time. He said some answers he could have pulled up if he was a wee bit sharper (such as a question featuring B.J. Novak) just didn't come. And there was one geography question in the $2,000 spot that he thought was so easy, he hesitated because he wondered if it was a trick question. (Who knows if the "Jeopardy" writers do that just to mess with these geniuses?)
Anyway, Dawson entered the final Jeopardy round in third place but not far behind the other two. He still had a shot. He said he's good with Final Jeopardy questions and knew three of the four other ones that week. He bet a modest $1,800, enough to beat the leader Chuck in case Chuck got the answer wrong and bet nothing.
But this answer flummoxed everyone on the topic "Famous Books."
"It was published March 25, 1830; a very popular work with the same name premiered March 24, 2011."
The phrasing was curious. Books don't "premiere." So Dawson thought about movies matching up with books from the 1830 time period. He had "Moby Dick" on the brain but realized that wasn't the right time frame. He then tried to think of movies that premiered in March, 2011. Again, he couldn't connect the two. He said he thought they were the same title but unrelated. None of these thoughts gave him an answer after 30 seconds.
The question: "What is 'Book of Mormon.'?"
Much to his annoyance, Dawson said he had anticipated some sort of "Book of Mormon" question - just not one that tricky.
He said very few of the "Jeopardy" champs who had seen the taping had any idea what the answer was. And neither did either his two opponents. Unfortunately for Dawson, his rivals bet conservatively as well and he ended up in third place.
Two of the most successful "Jeopardy" winners of all time, Brad Rutter (winnings to date: $3.4 million) and Ken Jennings (winnings to date: $3.3 million) are still in the running. We'll see them again next week.
"Jeopardy" airs locally on 11 Alive at 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
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