Samuels Named Co-Executive Producer of 'Katie'

By Paige Albiniak
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

Kathy Samuels will be co-executive producer of Disney-ABC's new talk show, Katie, producing alongside Jeff Zucker, the distributor confirmed Tuesday (March 13).

Samuels, who has been consulting with Zucker and his team for a few months, has a background in producing daytime television. She's worked on such shows as Rachael Ray, Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood. Most recently, she worked at Discovery and Hasbro's new kids' network, The Hub, producing pop-culture magazine Hubworld, which starred Cupcake Wars' Justin Willman. 

Katie is a one-hour talk strip starring former CBS News and Today Show anchor Katie Couric premiering this fall. The show is distributed by Disney-ABC across the country, including on the ABC owned stations. ABC returned one afternoon hour to stations to make room for the new talker.

Paige Albiniak
Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.