Deal or No Deal host,
Howie Mandel, is scheduled to drop by at the National Association of Television Program Executives or NATPE's Annual Conference & Exhibition this year. This year's edition kicked off yesterday and is scheduled to run until Thursday, January 31, at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas.
Mandel will be on hand to promote NBC Universal's syndicated version of
Deal or No Deal, which is slated to get off the ground soon.
Just as with
Deal or No Deal primetime, Mandel will also be at the helm as master of ceremonies of its syndicated edition. Apparently still brimming with energy and enthusiasm for his hosting duties, Mandel is unconcerned about the notion of a career burnout or of choking viewers with his presence on both
Deal or No Deal versions.
"It's the most exciting, thrilling, creatively fulfilling job I've had to date," Mandel raved. "Even though it requires no skills and there's no trivia and stunts, every game unfolds in a new way, with a different contestant. It's the only show on TV that I can think of that goes from excitement to devastation in a couple of minutes."
This year's batch of first-run projects at the NATPE Annual Conference & Exhibition has seen a return of big-name personalities, something that was completely missing the previous year. Aside from Mandel, Bonnie Hunt of
Life with Bonnie is also emceeing a daytime talk show under Telepictures Productions and distributed by Warner Bros.
"It's heartening to see that, in terms of the projects going forward, there are higher-profile shows with higher production values than we've seen in the last couple of seasons," Hilary Estey McLoughlin, president of Telepictures, remarked.
The annual convention offers upcoming first-run projects to showcase and promote themselves to television bigwigs. Many appear to be in the right direction to go into syndication by fall of this year, but at least five have already been widely cleared.
-Rosario Santiago, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
(Image Courtesy of NBC)