• by Wayne Friedman , September 22, 2005

In the world of syndication, it's out with the old; in with the old.

Switching gears in midstream, Twentieth Television will bring Geraldo Rivera back to syndicated TV with "Geraldo at Large," a live, first-run news show that will run for a half-hour Monday to Friday on the Fox owned-and-operated stations, starting in November.

With this show, Twentieth will replace the lackluster "A Current Affair"--itself an effort to return Twentieth to its former glory. The original show ran from 1986 to 1996. The new version started a few months ago, and now will stay on the air until October.

"A Current Affair" averaged a 2.5 household rating--but that wasn't delivering enough for stations, especially for the high-rate prime access time periods. It had been distributed mostly on Fox stations, reaching 67 percent of U.S. TV households.

"Geraldo at Large" will only get to 45 percent of the country at first--all from the Fox Television Station group, which consists of 35 stations covering nearly 45 percent of U.S. television homes. Starting now, Fox will try to convince non-Fox stations to take the new show. Rivera hosted a Tribune Entertainment first-run syndication show, starting in 1987--"The Geraldo Rivera Show"--which ran for 11 years.

Twentieth executives believe that parent company News Corp.'s association with harder news--best represented by Twentieth's sister company, cable network Fox News--will help the new Geraldo show to become a success.

Bob Cook, president and COO of Twentieth Television, in a press release said: "'Geraldo at Large' will take our news programming strategy to an entirely new level. Viewers are demanding more topical coverage and stronger investigative reporting in their news."

Twentieth has had somewhat better luck with a new court show just launched recently, "Judge Alex." It averaged a 1.7/5 for its debut week, which matched the average rating of its lead-in programming. The show was also up 13 percent versus the same time periods in September and October 2004.