The Fox Television Stations have renewed syndicated half-hour entertainment news series, Dish Nation, for two more seasons, taking the show through the 2016-17 season, Frank Cicha, Fox TV Stations senior VP of programming, and Stephen Brown, FTS executive VP of programming and development, said Tuesday.
“The challenge in covering entertainment news/pop culture is doing it differently — Dish Nation is doing it differently,” said Cicha in a statement. “This year, Dish has raised the bar on what it’s good at — honest, ethnically diverse, unapologetic and often very funny takes on this stuff. We see it as a show with big upside, and audiences in our key time periods and upgrades have backed us up.”
Dish Nation captures drive-time radio teams in major markets chatting about the pop-culture news of the day and turns that footage into a daily TV show. This season, Dish Nation is averaging 1.42 million viewers per day, according to FTS, and is up 10% in viewers from last season. Season to date, it's averaging a 1.0 in households, according to Nielsen Media Research, although that number climbed 10% to a 1.1 in the week ended Dec. 21.
“The rise in Dish Nation’s viewership coincides with an increase in brand awareness across our digital platform,” said Brown in a statement. “Since completely overhauling DishNation.com in June, we have seen an impressive +467% increase in page views. This increased engagement speaks to audiences and fans’ growing enthusiasm for the program.”
Dish Nation’s radio teams include Atlanta’s Rickey Smiley Morning Show (pictured), heard locally on Atlanta’s WHTA and syndicated in over 60 radio markets nationwide. It is hosted by Rickey Smiley, Headkrack, Rock-T, Gary with da Tea and is joined by The Real Housewives of Atlanta star, Porsha Williams. Kidd Kraddick in the Morning, based in Dallas, is syndicated in over 65 markets and features Kellie Rasberry, Jenna, Big Al Mack and J-Si. Los Angeles’ Heidi & Frank, also featuring Erik Scott Smith and Sammi Marino, is heard weekdays on KLOS.
Distributed by Twentieth Television, Michael Bachmann serves as Dish Nation’s executive producer. Matt Blanock and Randy Christini are co-executive producers.
