TV “icon” Maury Povich, who worked for WTTG in D.C. in 1960s, to retire
Daytime syndicated talk show Maury will be wrapping with the current season, saying that it was a mutual decision between NBCUniversal and veteran host Maury Povich to end the show.
“Maury is a television icon, a pop culture legend and we couldn’t be more proud to have been a part of his incredible career,” said, Tracie Wilson, EVP, NBCUniversal Syndication Studios, said in a statement.
Born in Washington, D.C., Povich, the son of Washington Post sports writer Shirley Povich, got his first job on Washington radio station WWDC, where he did publicity and worked as a reporter. By 1966, he was a news reporter and sportscaster for WTTG. In 1967, he became the original co-host of the station’s popular midday talk show, Panorama, which brought him national recognition. When media mogul Rupert Murdoch and 20th Century Fox acquired WTTG and the rest of Metromedia’s television station group in 1986, one of the first moves made by the newly christened Fox Television Stations was to bring Povich to New York to host A Current Affair.
The Maury Povich Show was launched in 1991 by Paramount Domestic Television. It shortened its name to Maury in the mid-1990s. In 1998, Studio USA took over the program. The company was subsequently acquired by NBCUniversal.
According t0 Wikipedia, in 1984, he married news anchor Connie Chung, whom he had met while working in the news department at WTTG.
In 2017, Povich became an investor and part owner of the Washington, D.C., bar and restaurant Chatter, along with other D.C. notables Tony Kornheiser and former college basketball coach Gary Williams.
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(Photo: Povich and wife Connie Chung.)
