AM Buffalo

AM Buffalo is an American television talk show based in Buffalo, New York. The program has aired on WKBW-TV since its founding in 1978 and is hosted by Linda Pellegrino. Jon Summers serves as a reporter and announcer for the program.

Previous hosts include Brian Kahle (died May 14, 2013), Nancy Foreman, Cindy Abbott, Drew Kahn, and Helen Tederous; the hourlong program has aired weekdays on WKBW at 10:00 AM since its inception, with a few temporary time changes. The show was part of ABC's "AM (city)" franchise, the same franchise that spawned The Oprah Winfrey Show (which was originally AM Chicago) and Live with Regis and Kelly (which traces its history to AM Los Angeles).^{[citation needed]}

The show dates back to 1978 after the discontinuation of the national Dialing for Dollars franchise, and has historically followed a similar, although somewhat broader, format. The Buffalo version of Dialing for Dollars was a full variety show and game show complete with studio audience. Hosts during this era include Nolan Johannes, Liz Dribben (1964 to 1968), and Dave Thomas. The studio audience was removed in the transition to AM Buffalo, while news segments and interviews were integrated into the format. John DiSciullo served as an executive producer and substitute host of the show from 1982 until leaving WKBW in 2011.

Since the late 1990s, the series has consisted mostly of paid segments, with sponsors as "guests." During major news events, the show turns into a general interest call-in talk show. Cooking segments and local musicians are also occasionally featured, and there are some celebrity interviews (via satellite) conducted in coordination with advertising promotions, often involving call-in contests where listeners can win prizes. In 2008, the show relaunched the "Jackpot Call" from Dialing for Dollars. The show often ends with a music video.

One of AM Buffalo's most novel contests was a contest known as Who Wants to be a Trivianaire, a local version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? complete with Millionaire music and graphics. Usually played during the summer, contestants called in and answered one multiple-choice question for a prize package. When Millionaire left ABC, Trivianaire was cancelled.

The show's theme music, after several years of generic jazz- and light-themed music, switched to the vocal version of Move Closer to Your World in December 2008, as recognition of the show celebrating its 30th anniversary (and the station as a whole celebrating its 50th as well as changing back to its Eyewitness News format, which uses the theme). For summer 2010, the program changed themes again to a summer-based theme.

Other versions

A weekend version of the program, Buffalo Weekend, was created in February 2008, as a mixture of replays of the previous week's AM Buffalo segments and a few new features (including a community calendar). It initially aired at 9:00 AM before moving to 7:30 AM in January 2009; the half-hour program airs alongside the syndicated House Smarts with Lou Manfredini. It is, as of May 2009, off the air and infomercials are airing in its place.

An afternoon version of the show, called PM Buffalo, aired from 2004 until August 29, 2008 at 4:00 p.m. PM Buffalo was preceded in its time slot by a program called WNY Live!. Hosted by Linda White and later by Grace Polanski, WNY Live! had news updates at the top and bottom of each hour and several long form news features. WKBW's budget was cut in 2004 and WNY Live! was replaced by a PM version of the AM Buffalo program. In its last years, further budget cuts and a loss of advertisers reduced PM Buffalo largely to repeats of AM Buffalo's paid segments, and the program was no longer aired live. The program, by this point, was described as "deadly" to the station's ratings^[1] and because of this, WKBW ended PM Buffalo on August 29, 2008 and replaced it with the syndicated medical talk show The Doctors, which the station promoted aggressively.

After John DiSciullo left WKBW-TV and joined WBBZ-TV, that station openly began discussing an afternoon news magazine in the mold of PM Buffalo.^[2]

References

External links

• AM Buffalo at wkbw.com
• PM Buffalo at wkbw.com
• A history of AM Buffalo and Dialing for Dollars from 1964 to 1994, from WKBW's 35th anniversary special. Archived by Buffalo media historian Steve Cichon.