THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 14, 1995 TAG: 9512140051
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LARRY BONKO
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
LOCAL TV NEWS and notes to consider while you wait to see who will be the next celebrity with a milk moustache:
And they are planning to do it live - The Family Channel, cable television's ninth largest network, will launch a TV magazine in April 1996. That's the word from FAM's corporate headquarters on Guardian Lane in Virginia Beach.
Cristina Ferrare will host ``Family and Home: How to Live a Better Life.'' Woody Frasier will produce it in Southern California. FAM is keeping quiet about other details of the two-hour program until the brass meets with TV writers in Pasadena, Calif., next month.
Maybe she'll tell a few Barbara Walters stories - It's been 21 years since TV producer Beth Polson earned a degree from Old Dominion U. Come Sunday at 1:30 p.m. in Scope, Polson returns to Norfolk to address ODU's graduating class of 1,950 seniors.
Polson is a native of Corapeake, N.C., who has produced nine made-for-TV films, including ``The Christmas Box,'' which airs Sunday night on CBS. She worked with TV heavyweights David Brinkley and Barbara Walters, and TV lightweights John Tesh and Maria Shriver, before starting her production company in Southern California.
Some of us around here knew her when - when she was a reporter on the late, great Ledger-Star afternoon paper.
Polson promises an uplifting talk about the mind, body and spirit. Couldn't we have just one little Barbara Walters story? A Brinkley story?
And a dinosaur shall show them the way - There's been a lot of talk lately about keeping the kids away from TV programming unsuitable for them. The V-chip may be the answer. But that technology is not yet here.
The TCI Kid Control is.
Tele-Communications Inc., the cable company in Chesapeake, believes it has the coolest thing for beaming in TV shows that won't rot children's brains. TCI Kid Control is a remote-control device with eight channels, including Nickelodeon, PBS and The Learning Channel locked in or pre-programmed.
The youngsters should get a kick out of using TCI Kid Control because the controls (Remote-a-Saurus and Channel Rover) come disguised as an orange dinosaur and purple puppy. They cost $29.95.
``The TCI Kid Control is the direct result of hearing from parents deeply concerned about what their children are watching on television,'' said Barry Marshall, the company's chief operating officer. TCI will donate $1 from the sale of each remote to Public Broadcast-ing.
The least they can do is show a couple of minutes on ESPN - Norfolk's Pernell Whitaker, the welterweight who is generally regarded as the best prizefighter in the world, slipped into his Air Jordans the other day to play in a charity basketball game in Pensacola, Fla. On the other side was Roy Jones Jr., the super middleweight champion.
Home Box Office Sports, with whom Whitaker has a long-standing contract to produce prime-time ring spectaculars, helped sponsor the game on behalf of the Lend-a-Hand Fund.
So how did Whitaker handle himself on the basketball court? Only the people who saw the game in Pensacola will ever know. HBO says it has no plans to put the game on TV.
Getting old is not for sissies - With 1 million Virginians over 60, the folks at WVEC, including Sherri Brennen, Dru Doyle and David Ferebee III, decided it was time to do a program about problems that may come with aging.
``Gray Matters: Issues in Aging, a Family Health Project Special'' airs on Channel 13 Monday at 8 p.m. This producing team has won Emmys in the past. What's good about getting old? The senior-citizen discounts. by CNB