The uncertain future of "At the Movies": It's all about the Benjamins

 
Mankiewicz and Lyons

When was the last time you watched "Ebert & Roeper"? Answering that question will give you an immediate insight into the long-running movie review show's decision to change co-hosts on Sept. 6.

As someone who actually does TiVo "Ebert & Roeper" and occasionally watches it on the Web, I wasn't surprised or outraged by Disney's announcement today that Ben Lyons and Ben Mankieiwicz would be taking over and that format changes were in the works for "At the Movies." It came the day after Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper announced they would not be returning for another season.

The question is, will new hosts and a format change be enough to reverse the show's decline? First, let's look at the bottom line and see why change was overdue.

Three years ago, Chicago Magazine found that "Siskel & Ebert" had lost two-thirds of its audience since the 1980s, and that ratings had only declined after Gene Siskel's death in 1999. The show was airing in some terrible time slots (2 a.m. in Cincinnati). More ominously, Carol Felsenthal reported, "the show breaks even at best and is kept going by Disney for reasons of prestige, not profit."

And that was written six months before Ebert's own health took a turn for the worse. Roger is doing fine these days — other than his voice — but that voice has kept him off the air more than two years, and it's fair to say that Disney has been itching to move on for quite some time. When I interviewed Roeper last year, discussions over the show's future had gotten so acrimonious that Ebert and Siskel's widow had agreed to pull the signature "thumbs up"/"thumbs down" ratings from the show's reviews. In return, or retaliation, Disney had rebranded the show's official website AtTheMoviesTV.com, omitting the critics' names from the URL.

It all came to a head this week. The announcement from Disney-ABC Domestic Television tells us that not only are Rich and Roger being replaced by Lyons and Mankiewicz (grandson of the Hollywood legend Herman and brother of NBC reporter/TV Barn reader Josh), but that the producers will be adding "Several Exciting New Segments" to the program. They are:

• "Critics Round-Up," which features the co-hosts in lively discussions with other well-respected critics via satellite from cities across the country.

• "3 to See," where the co-hosts recommend their top three "must see" films in theatres now, to give viewers a chance to make quick decisions on what to see that weekend. (This has recently been added to the show, so it's not "new" new.)

• And ... that's all that was in the release.

No doubt other "exciting new segments" are on the way — including, I suspect, celebrity interviews. At the very least, they are on the table, because there is little point in hiring Ben Lyons if all you want is movie criticism. He's better known on the E! show "Daily 10" for his interviews and box-office predictions than he is for telling you if a movie is crap or not.

That said, he has reviewed movies on TV before — with his dad:

In fact, I suspect that what Disney wants to do is clone "Reel Talk," from which the above clip was taken. "Reel Talk" is an under-the-radar hybrid review-interview show that NBC launched in 2005 with Lyons and Alison Bailes as co-hosts. It has significantly more promotional content and less consumer-service content than "At the Movies."

It's understandable that Disney would head this way. Young people are interested in celebrities. We know that. But the Internet proves that young people are not SOLELY interested in celebrities. Many of them are as interested in what is written on the page and produced for the screen than in the lives of the people who act out the lines. They read catty blogs and watch G4's "Attack of the Show!" Hell, some of them may even read Roger Ebert's Journal.

I'm convinced there is a market for tough-minded movie reviews — just as I'm convinced there is a market for tough-minded TV criticism, not just stargazing. That's why I hope Ebert will get his voice back and then that he and Roeper will unretire "thumbs up"/"thumbs down" and partner with a cable channel or popular website that will let them do their thing.