Michael Starr

Michael Starr

TV

‘Extant’ gets improved time slot in push for more fans

CBS is moving its new Halle Berry series, “Extant,” to a later timeslot in a bid to gain some viewer traction.

The Wednesday night drama will air at 10 p.m. starting this Wednesday (July 30), replacing repeats of “Criminal Minds,” which move to 9 p.m. following “Big Brother.”

The news arrives just as CBS sent out Live +7 ratings for the first episode of “Extant,” which aired July 9. That episode debuted to 9.6 million viewers and added another 3 million viewers via time-shifted viewing (DVR, etc.). It also boosted its numbers in adults 18-49 by 50 percent, up to a 2.4, with Live +7 data factored in.

Since then, “Extant” has taken a hit in total viewers — 6.5 million for last week’s episode — and in adults 18-49, hence the move to 10 p.m. to (hopefully) beef up its numbers a bit.

More series news: Brooklyn’s own Don Stark — who memorably played Donna’s (Laura Prepon) dad in “That ’70s Show” — currently co-stars on VH1’s “Hit the Floor” as Oscar Kincade, the ruthless owner of the LA Devils basketball team. Kincade abuses his power, and everyone else around him — and if he sounds suspiciously like banned-for-life LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling well, as publicist Pam Golum used to say about “Law & Order”: “It’s fiction.”

Right.

Kincade has a key storyline revolving around a murder that comes to a head in the Aug. 11 season finale of “Hit the Floor,” which also stars Dean Cain, Rick Fox, Kimberly Elise and Jodi Lynn O’Keefe. Stark, by the way, will be seen in the upcoming indie movie “Safelight” playing a trucker who romances a truck-stop owner played by Christine Lahti.

Reege takes 10 (a.m.)

Regis Philbin will fill in for Hoda Kotb on the fourth hour of Friday’s “Today Show” — reuniting him with his former “Live” co-host Kathie Lee Gifford. It’s the second time in two years Reege and Gifford have co-hosted “Today.” They first reunited back in June 2012, which marked the first time they’d worked together, on-air, since Gifford left “Live” in 2000.

“I’m going to pinch-hit for Hoda,” Reege told me Monday. “We’re just going to have some laughs.” He says he’ll mostly “wing it” on Friday’s show, though he does have a few tricks up his sleeve. As for Gifford and Kotb’s proclivity for imbibing on their hour-long show (10 a.m./Ch. 4), well, Reege says he’d rather play it safe. “I’m not much of a drinker, especially at 10 a.m.,” he says. “But I guess I’ll have to keep up.”

“We’re closer friends than ever, and I’m so looking forward to see him,” Gifford said via e-mail. “We are older and crankier, so this should be fun.”