Following lots of throat-clearing, The Weather Channel has finally unveiled the name and format of Sam Champion’s new, three-hour weekday morning show (7-10 a.m.).
It’s called “AMHQ with Sam Champion” and will premiere Monday, March 17 with Champion joined by meteorologists/Weather Channel vets Maria LaRosa and Mike Bettes live from the network’s headquarters in Atlanta. Al Roker’s Wake Up With Al” — co-hosted by Stephanie Abrams — will lead-into “AMHQ” from 5:30 to 7 a.m. Champion’s show promises to “cover every facet of news, including business, sports, culture events, technology, health and wellness.”
‘Cards’: A novel approach
Books: With the new season of “House of Cards” burning up Netflix queues and causing quite a stir, you might be interested in the best-selling book that started it all. Sourcebooks has acquired the US rights to Michael Dobbs’ novel, “House of Cards” — originally published in the UK over 20 years ago — and has released this as an eBook, with the print version coming out March 11.
The Dobbs novel encompasses the story of Chief Whip Frances Urquhart, who’s ruthless in his drive to become British Prime Minister. (In the Netflix series, Kevin Spacey plays Frances Underwood, who’s pursuing the vice presidency by whatever means necessary.) Ian Richardson played Urquhart in the British TV version.
More: If your curiosity was piqued by all hoopla surrounding the recent 50th anniversary of The Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” you might want to check out “The Fab One Hundred and Four,” a new book written by author/Beatles scholar David Bedford. Exhaustively researched and illustrated with terrific (and rare) photos, the book tills the fertile soil of the band’s early history by examining the Liverpool musicians who influenced John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — culminating in the onslaught of Beatlemania following their “Sullivan Show” appearance on CBS.
Last, but not least . . .
Ralph Macchio on Wednesday’s “Four Courses with JB Smoove” (11:30 p.m./MSG) says he doesn’t mind the 2010 remake of his signature movie, “The Karate Kid”: “It’s a great story, so why not re-imagine it. But it’s hard for me to embrace the concept . . . it’s already been put on my tombstone, only now they have to put ‘original’ in the middle” . . . Ch. 5’s Lisa Evers celebrates the 40th anniversary of hip-hop Thursday on “Good Day New York” (9 a.m. hour) with guests including Naughty by Nature . . . Why her dentist loves her: Ex-“Downton Abbey” co-star
Jessica Brown Findlay, when asked by People magazine how her kissing scenes were with her “Winter’s Tale” co-star Colin Farrell: “Quite nice. It’s always good to brush your teeth.”