Fox Inc. Pulls the Plug on Celebrity TV News Show

“Entertainment Daily Journal,” Fox Inc.’s attempt to duplicate the success of Paramount’s lucrative celebrity TV news show “Entertainment Tonight,” was canceled Monday after only two months on the air, the show’s producer said.

“EDJ,” as the program billed itself, was the brainchild of Fox Chairman Barry Diller and represented his attempt to create a syndicated windfall for Fox similar to the one he created for Paramount with “Entertainment Tonight” in 1981. “EDJ” will air through Oct. 25.

“We’ve determined that the current economic environment cannot support a five-day-a-week broadcast of this kind,” said Bill Knoedelseder, executive producer of the program.

“EDJ,” which relied in equal doses on a somewhat serious look at Hollywood and on celebrity gossip from star-gazers such as Liz Smith, premiered in July on 117 stations across the country after the collapse of another Fox program, “Personalities.”

But as a glut of syndicated programming became available for the new fall season earlier this month, Twentieth Television, the Fox division that distributed the program, had an increasingly difficult time selling it, a source with the show said.