Rob Owen stories, Page 41

Rob Owen
Rob Owen
Pope Francis, first Latin American pontiff, dies at 88
TV Talk: Unity girl makes ‘America’s Got Talent’ history, advances to live shows 
Victory Brinker, a 9-year-old opera singer from Unity Township, made “America’s Got Talent” history Tuesday night, becoming the first “AGT” competitor to earn a “Golden Buzzer” from all four judges, advancing her to this season’s live shows later this summer. In the episode that aired on Tuesday but taped in...
TV Talk: CMU grad is part of ‘Leverage’ sequel series 
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. The 2008-12 TNT drama “Leverage” returns Friday as sequel series “Leverage: Redemption” on free, ad-supported streaming service IMDb TV. The biggest change? Team leader Nathan Ford (Timothy Hutton) is dead and his grifter widow Sophie...
TV Talk: Unity girl sings on ‘America’s Got Talent’
Before she’s on “America’s Got Talent” next week, 9-year-old opera singer Victory Brinker of Unity used to play “AGT” with her 10 siblings as parents Christine and Eric took on the roles of the show’s judges. “All of my brothers and sisters would do acts, and sometimes I would pretend...
TV Talk: IMBd TV’s ‘Sprung’ to film in Pittsburgh
The latest series from writer/producer Greg Garcia, best known for the comedies “Raising Hope,” “My Name is Earl” and “The Guest Book,” will film in Pittsburgh this summer. “Sprung,” which will stream on IMDb TV, the free, ad-supported streaming service from Amazon, centers on a group of former prison inmates...
TV Talk: WTAE adds 4 p.m. newscast
In an unsurprising move, WTAE will replace low-rated talk show “Ellen” at 4 p.m. with a newscast anchored by Andrew Stockey and Kelly Sasso. Meteorologist Jeff Verszyla will provide weather forecasts. WTAE’s 4 p.m. newscast, which begins Tuesday, will compete head-to-head with news on KDKA-TV. WPXI-TV currently airs “Judge Judy”...
TV Talk: Mt. Lebanon native Gillian Jacobs visits ‘Fear Street’ on Netflix
Gillian Jacobs, a 2000 graduate of Mt. Lebanon High School, isn’t a fan of horror movies, but she was up for the challenge in acting in several over the past year, including the Netflix “Fear Street” trilogy, based on the R.L. Stine books. “Its definitely a genre that I wanted...
TV Q&A: Do longer-tenured TV anchors get more vacation time?
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: Do KDKA-TV on-air talent who have been with the station for a while get a ton of vacation time? I’ve noticed sports anchor Bob Pompeani...
TV Talk: WTAE anchor to depart, another Mister Rogers statue unveiled
WTAE weekend morning anchor Chris Lovingood will depart the station by the end of July after a three-year stint at the ABC affiliate. Lovingood joined WTAE in 2018 from a station in Fort Myers, Fla. In a Facebook post, Lovingood said he’ll move to WRAL-TV in Raleigh, N.C. “They have...
TV Talk: Paul Martino retires from KDKA-TV, on-air sendoff planned
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. After a 37-year run at KDKA-TV, reporter/anchor Paul Martino hangs up his microphone this week with an on-air exit interview farewell that’s expected to air during the station’s 5 and 6 p.m. newscasts Wednesday. “I...
TV Talk: CMU grad Josh Gad joined by college pals on ‘Central Park’ 
Comic actor Josh Gad, a 2003 Carnegie Mellon University grad, can draw a direct line from his days as a CMU student to “Central Park,” the Apple TV+ animated musical comedy he created with “Bob’s Burgers” veterans Loren Bouchard and Nora Smith. “CMU gave me an opportunity to create from...
TV Q&A: What happened to a news anchor’s wedding ring?
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 Kelly Sasso is no longer wearing her wedding ring? What’s the scoop on this? — Michael via Twitter Rob: Don’t get too excited,...
TV Talk: ‘Evil’ returns for season 2 on a new platform 
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. It’s a topsy-turvy TV world these days with shows moving from linear networks to streaming services and sometimes back again, especially if it’s a Discovery Networks show. Now CBS has joined the chaos, moving...
TV Talk: Screenwriter brings a Pittsburgh friendship to Pixar’s ‘Luca’ on Disney+ 
Point Breeze native Jesse Andrews, who wrote the original novel “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” and the script for the 2015 filmed-in-Pittsburgh movie adaptation, had one of his own high school friendships in mind when writing the script for the Pixar movie “Luca,” streaming Friday on Disney+. Luca...
Showtime sets premiere date for locally filmed series ‘American Rust’ 
Showtime’s Western Pennsylvania-set drama “American Rust,” currently filming its nine-episode first season around the region, will premiere at 10 p.m. Sept. 12. Showtime on Wednesday released a first-look trailer for the series that stars Jeff Daniels as the chief of police of Buell, Fayette County, where the son (Alex Neustaedter)...
TV Q&A: Why do TV stations pay for bragging rights?
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: Channel 4 recently began promoting that they are the “WeatheRate Certified Most Accurate” weather forecast in Pittsburgh. Why would a station pay a company for...
TV Talk: Murrysville native Julie Benz spills ‘Secrets of a Gold Digger’ on Lifetime 
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. While some American actors have gone stir crazy waiting out the required 14-day quarantine before they can work on film and TV projects that shoot in Canada, Murrysville native Julie Benz learned to love the...
TV Talk: ‘Loki’ time hops, AMC’s ‘Kevin Can…’ struggles 
So far Marvel’s efforts for Disney+ have stretched from the genre-bending, clever “WandaVision” to the excessively violent, more routine “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.” The streaming service’s latest series, the six-episode “Loki,” falls somewhere in between, but leans closer to the creative freshness of “WandaVision” in the first two...
TV Q&A: When will PBS’s ‘Call the Midwife’ be back with new episodes?
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: Do you have any clue as to when PBS’s “Call the Midwife” will be broadcast? Usually, by now the show is over for the year....
TV Talk: George A. Romero transports viewers to ‘The Amusement Park’ 
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. There are no zombies in the usual George A. Romero sense in his recently restored film “The Amusement Park,” streaming Tuesday on Shudder and AMC+. Instead, the emphasis is on discrimination against the elderly. “The...
TV Talk: ‘Meerkat Manor’ rebooted on BBC America with bigger scope
In this age of remakes, reboots and revivals, it stands to reason that even a 2005-08 natural history series can return with new episodes. Previously airing on Animal Planet, the reboot of “Meerkat Manor” from original series creator Caroline Hawkins and Oxford Scientific Films debuts at 8 p.m. Saturday on...
TV Q&A: Why did KDKA-TV make such a big deal out of an anchor’s retirement?
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: In reference to “Stacy Smith prepares to sign off from KDKA-TV on his terms” and his three-day consecration: I appreciate Stacy Smith and his devotion...
WTAE’s Twitter account throws shade at WPXI
Fridays, particularly before a holiday weekend, are often dubbed “take out the trash day” for when a company wants to make moves that could be poorly received in hopes that most people aren’t paying attention. Someone running WTAE-TV’s social media account opted for a different kind of trashing on Twitter...
TV Talk: ‘Friends’ cast reunites; May sweeps local news ratings released
HBO Max and media hype over the long-in-the-works “Friends” reunion would make more sense if it was the cast of the one-time NBC hit reuniting to reprise their classic characters, but this is not that. The “Friends” reunion, streaming on HBO Max, is just the actors as themselves reminiscing about...
TV Talk: TV specials shine a light on 1921’s Tulsa race massacre 
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Although The Washington Post began to dig into the history of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre earlier, it was HBO’s 2019 fictional limited series “Watchmen” that really turned the spotlight on this shameful forgotten piece...
Pittsburgh-raised music star Wiz Khalifa revealed on ‘Masked Singer’ 
In the end, it makes sense that Wiz Khalifa would turn out to be The Chameleon. After all, he’s already a chameleon-like multi-hyphenate: rap star, actor (“Dickinson”) and businessman (Khalifa Kush cannabis). The Pittsburgh Allderdice grad was unmasked Wednesday night on the fifth season finale of Fox’s “The Masked Singer”...


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