Geraldo finally euthanized

The only surprise is that it's taken this long: Twentieth Television's Geraldo at Large has been canceled at last.

The show’s staff got word today that production will shut down in a matter of weeks, and that the show will disappear at the end of January.

We got the scoop that the show was going away a little prematurely-- back in August, when word was that sagging ratings would have the show pulled by September. But Roger Ailes, chairman of Fox News and the Fox Television stations, hung in, if only because of pride. Ailes had slammed the series onto the air in November 2005, after taking over the stations leadership from Rupert Murdoch's son Lachlan, and immediately killing the newly-revived A Current Affair. The tabloid series had competed with, and in some cases beaten Ailes' Fox News team on major stories, while Geraldo had a fat Fox News contract and was relegated to weekends.

At Large drew on the Fox News resources as it threw the shticky Geraldo into an arena that had passed him by. The show became most notable for its brutal, ugly and nasty promos, whose preoccupation with rapists, molesters and perverts stuck out when scheduled amid family programming.

Sadly, this is another show closing and a third consecutive strike for television stalwart Arthel Neville, who was brought on board At Large after stepping into Affair when her previous showcase, Good Day Live, was canceled.

Geraldo’s return to weekends at the Fox News Channel opens a slot for Warner Bros.' magazine based on TMZ, the tabloid celebutard and crime-driven website fronted by flamboyant personality Harvey Levin, which got much mileage out of breaking the Mel Gibson anti-Semitism story, but whose bread and butter is sending out kids with cameras to harass celebrities, and again may find itself being too hard-edged for the real mainstream.