Discovery, 'Dateline' Team Up for Newsmag
By LINDA MOSS -- Multichannel News, 1/29/2001
PASADENA, CALIF. -Discovery Channel, which faces a new rival in National Geographic Channel, will introduce a new hour-long magazine show co-produced with Dateline NBC.
At the recent Television Critics Association tour, Discovery officials announced that Deadline Discovery would replace Discovery News, the weekly, half-hour science news show that currently airs on Friday nights. Deadline Discovery premieres on Wednesdays from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m., starting Jan. 31.
The program will be produced from Dateline NBC's New York studios by the same team that produced Discovery News and will be anchored by Len Cannon.
Discovery's new weekly magazine show will explore not only scientific breakthroughs, but also address topics that range from cutting-edge crime-fighting techniques to societal trends.
National Geographic Channel recently launched with a nightly one-hour news show, National Geographic Today.
Discovery Channel's other big programming news included its plans to premiere the documentary Quest for Captain Kidd on June 10. Last year, an expedition funded by Discovery and led by underwater explorer Barry Clifford found what's believed to be the partially buried wreckage of Kidd's 17th-century ship, the Adventure Galley, in the harbor of Sainte-Marie, Madagascar.
The rest of the Discovery Communications Inc. analog stable also made TCA presentations. This past Sunday (Jan. 28), Discovery Health Channel premiered the first of five installments of Nurses, a reality series filmed at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
The Learning Channel's major programming initiative is the six-part series Legal Action, which will bow in late spring.
Animal Planet on April 1 will air the first of four specials about Washington's new popular pair, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, the two giant pandas at the National Zoo. The special is called Meet the Pandas: Washington's New Power Couple. Finally, Travel Channel's offerings will be highlighted by the two-hour special Secrets of San Simeon with Patricia Hearst, which airs March 19.
Hearst, who was recently pardoned by former President Clinton, appeared on Travel Channel's panel about the show. It focuses on William Randolph Hearst, her grandfather, and his fabulous hilltop property.
