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From Dispatch:

WSYX denies 'Variety' report that it won't be showing 'Ellen' March 11, 1998

WSYX (Channel 6) officials are denying a trade paper's reports that they are threatening to yank the sitcom Ellen and fill its slot with Seinfeld reruns.

Another report in the paper Variety focusing on Ellen sparked a denial from Chastity Bono.

The Channel 6 story had the station pre-empting network programming at 9:30 p.m. Wednesdays beginning as early as this week -- replacing not Ellen, which is on hiatus, but the midseason sitcom Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place.

But Channel 6 General Manager Sam Stallworth said he had not talked to Variety and that the paper's story was wrong. Stallworth said that Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place will air as planned at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Variety reported that station owner Barry Baker said, "We have a problem with the content of Ellen." Other stations -- and ABC itself -- have similar problems with the show.

Ratings for Ellen peaked with last season's "coming-out" episode, in which the main character revealed that she is a lesbian. The star, Ellen DeGeneres, also revealed she is a lesbian shortly before the show aired.

This season, the sitcom has continued to carry gay-laden story lines, and viewers have lost interest. Ratings have dipped enough that ABC officials began hinting several months ago that Ellen might not return for another season.

"This is a matter of discussion between the station and the network," an ABC spokeswoman told the New York Daily News. "Obviously, our goal is to have our stations run our programming 100 percent of the time."

Meanwhile, hours after being quoted in Variety as saying Ellen was "too gay-specific," Bono said the comments were taken out of context.

Variety quoted Bono, the entertainment media director for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (and daughter of Cher and Sonny Bono), as saying the show "is so gay it's excluding a large part of our society."

She added, "It's one thing to have a gay lead character, but it's another when every episode deals with pretty specific gay issues."

However, according to a statement released by the alliance, Bono was only repeating some of the theories about the program that had appeared in print elsewhere.

"What the article fails to mention is that Ms. Bono and GLAAD strongly believe that the program contains themes that transcend issues of sexual orientation, and are entertaining and appealing to audiences gay and straight," according to the statement.

"She was discussing a whole bunch of stuff," a Gay & Lesbian Alliance spokesman said of Bono's comments. "The second half of the conversation was about GLAAD's work to save the show."

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