Disgusted Station Pulls Plug On ‘Carnie,’ ‘Jenny’

These days, there’s a lot of negative talk in the air when it comes to daytime talk shows.

Some of the shows have gotten the quick hook from their distributors (“Danny,” “Gabrielle,” “Charles Perez”). Others are finding themselves canceled or under fire by stations frustrated with the often sleazy content.

NBC affiliate KOAA-TV in Colorado Springs, the nation’s 97th-largest television marketplace, is the latest station to unleash such a salvo, abruptly dumping “Carnie” and “Jenny Jones.”

“Every day we were sitting and watching what was on and being ashamed of what was on our air,” said Ron Eccher, KOAA’s program director.

Last fall, station General Manager John Gilbert told show producers that he was concerned with the content, according to Eccher. When there seemed to be no response, station executives decided to take the matter into their own hands.

“We had been talking about this in departmental meetings for some time,” Eccher said. “We kept watching and eventually said we had to do something about it.”

Eccher admits that neither “Jenny Jones” nor “Carnie” was a ratings smash, though, he said, they would have been axed even if they were. In fact, KOAA still must pay a license fee for “Carnie” through June and for “Jenny Jones” until August 1997.

KOAA’s talk revolt follow California station KHSL’s October axing of “Jenny Jones” for the same reasons.

Eccher said the recent campaign by William Bennett against talk shows had nothing to do with the decision.

“Day in and day out there were so many crazy things on these shows,” Eccher said.

“We’re not trying to promote this stuff,” he said. “They have women in thong bikinis dancing and moving all over. That kind of stuff is for nightclubs and for nighttime, not daytime television. These things have turned out to be more of a sideshow than talk shows.”