Wendy Williams Staffs Up

Debmar-Mercury Tuesday added key staff to its new talker, The Wendy Williams Show, which starts a six-week test on Fox stations in four markets Monday, July 14.

Joining executive producer Rob Dauber are director Deb Miller, supervising producer Elise Silvestri and talent booker Leanne Elias, said Lonnie Burstein, Debmar-Mercury’s senior vice president of programming.

In addition, the show’s theme will be composed by David Vanacore, who wrote themes for Survivor, The Apprentice, Big Brother and Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?.

Emmy Award-winning Miller has worked for The Rosie O’Donnell Show, as well as directing live TV for MTV, BET, Discovery Channel, Comedy Central and VH1.

Silvestri was the showrunner for TLC’s Fashionably Late with Stacy London, and she has held senior staff positions on Crossing Over with John Edward, The Isaac Mizrahi Show, The Ananda Lewis Show, Martha Stewart Living and Sally Jessy Raphael.

Elias most recently ran Central Talent Booking’s Los Angeles-based office, overseeing bookings for series and specials on VH1, Fox, Bravo, E! Entertainment Television, Comedy Central, NBC, Sundance Channel and Westwood One.

The show will be taped in front of a studio audience at Manhattan’s All Mobile Video and air on WNYW New York at 10 a.m. (EST); KTTV Los Angeles at 1 p.m. (PST); KDFW Dallas-Fort Worth at 11 a.m. (CST); and WJBK Detroit at noon (EST).

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.