Michael Starr

Michael Starr

TV

HLN secures Nancy Grace’s services through 2017

Nancy Grace isn’t going anywhere, contrary to reports. The host of HLN’s long-running “Nancy Grace” has just inked a new, multi-year deal to remain the centerpiece of the network’s prime-time lineup through at least 2017.

Grace told me Tuesday that she was approached back in July about a contract extension by CNN chief Jeff Zucker, who also oversees sister network HLN. (Zucker brought in Albie Hecht as HLN’s EVP/GM in September.)

“I’m overwhelmed, happy and really looking forward to working with Albie and Jeff,” she said. “I’m all about crime and justice and that part of my show will stay the same. We might change [the show] up a bit, but my goal has and always will be helping to find missing people, especially children, and helping solve homicides and highlight [criminal] cases I think people should know about.”

I asked Grace about the rumors that she was about to be given the heave-ho in a big HLN prime-time purge. “I don’t know. There are always haters out there, especially for a person who’s in a position that I’m lucky enough to be in,” she said. “To get to have and voice and a point of view and to get to say what I think is right and wrong — a lot of people don’t like that and I get it. I understand it. I don’t like it, but whenever you take a stand, somebody is going to hate and dislike you.”

Year-to-date, “Nancy Grace” has averaged 490,000 viewers at 8 p.m. — up 15 percent over last year.

Grace has been at HLN since 2005.

Who wrote ‘Swanee River’?

Yesterday, I reviewed the colorized episodes of “I Love Lucy” airing this Friday night on CBS. That reminded me that another CBS ’50s sitcom classic, “The Honeymooners,” will make its annual “marathon” appearance on WPIX on Tuesday, Dec. 31. It’s been a Ch. 11 tradition since 1976 (it moved to New Year’s Eve in ’96). This year, the station will air 26 episodes (Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, Audrey Meadows and Joyce Randolph) starting 11 p.m. on Dec. 31. It’ll run until 4 a.m. Jan. 1 — breaking for news — and then resume at 9 a.m. and run until 5 p.m. (a total of 13 hours).

Last, but not least…

The Mohegan Sun properties in Uncasville, Ct., and Wilkes Barre, Pa. will be featured on the Jan. 10 episode of “Undercover Boss”on CBS when Mohegan Tribal Councilor Bruce “Two Dogs” Bozsum goes undercover . . . Acclaimed tenor James Valenti, who hails from New Jersey (Clinton), will perform during Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, singing an operatic solo of “O Holy Night,” during the televised PBS special . . . Nickelodeon has ordered a second season of its CG-animated series “Rabbids Invasion” . . . “Hill Street Blues: The Complete Series” will be out on DVD April 29. It aired on NBC from 1981-87.