Hot Ticket Gets Deep Freeze

By Paige Albiniak
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

Paramount Domestic Television has decided to cease production of its weekend movie-review show, Hot Ticket, hosted by Leonard Maltin and Joyce Kulhawik.

The show stayed fairly close to rival Ebert & Roeper at the Movies (Buena Vista) in the ratings, but Paramount insiders say the company wanted to free up some time periods of its new mag.

"These days we're putting all of our time and energy into the weekend franchises of our Monday-Friday strips, and a lot of key time slots for Hot Ticket were converted into slots for the weekend version of [new entertainment magazine] The Insider," said a source close to the show.

n the May sweeps, Hot Ticket averaged a 1.6 national household rating while 30-year-veteran Ebert & Roeper scored a 1.8. Hot Ticket has been on the air since 2001.

Paige Albiniak
Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.