TV: KSTP has a live one with new talk show

The most powerful person at "Twin Cities Live," KSTP's long-awaited afternoon talk show that debuts Monday, doesn't appear on camera, never contributes to production meetings and has not put one penny into the million-dollar operation.

Her name is Tammi, a 37-year-old Coon Rapids woman with a big smile and an even bigger mop of blond hair. She never finished college, lives on a budget, shops religiously at Target and puts her family above everything else.

She's also a piece of fiction.

Even so, her framed mug, pulled at random from the Internet, adorns every desk in the show's crammed offices, eight desks squeezed into a space that could probably fit inside Regis Philbin's bathroom. She is referred to by name at least three or four times an hour as a reminder of the show's target viewer, someone looking for warm-fuzzy stories that will counter the increasingly dark content on "Dr. Phil," the program's primary competition.

"We try to think of Tammi going to a potluck," said Taylor Cisco, one of the show's four producers. "We're going to give her a lot of familiar dishes, but occasionally we're going to ask her to try something different."

The first challenge for Tammi, as well as the rest of the market, will be getting over the rich memories of "Good Company," KSTP's long-running hit that left the air in 1994.

A plan to have "Good Company" hosts Steve Edelman and Sharon Anderson make a cameo on Monday's premiere had to be scrapped last week because of the couple's travel plans. No one locally has attempted an afternoon talker since the show ended, and, with newsrooms nationwide slashing their budgets, few have been launched.

"The economics of these kinds of shows are tough," said Channel 5's general manager, Rob Hubbard, who after years of stressing a hard edge in news broadcasts appears eager to show off his station's soft side.

"There are 5,000 choices in syndication, and if something doesn't work, a hundred other stations will have made the same mistake. It's hard for someone to single you out. What we're doing is an economical and professional risk. We're clearly not going to make money the first day out. It's going to take time for us to grow."

The steepness of the learning curve was evident during Monday's dress rehearsal.

A conversation with an Iraq-war veteran flopped when it became painfully clear that no one actually knew why he was on the show. At times, the chitchat between the two hosts, Rebekah Wood and John Hanson, seemed as forced and rehearsed as the banter that presenters torture us with at an awards show.

A segment on yoga exercises meant that the hosts had to change into sweats during a two-minute commercial break, a time crunch that had Wood dashing from the dressing area and slipping hard on the studio floor on her way to the set. Hanson's floppy earpiece made it look as if a curly fry was growing from his head. The overall frantic pace of the show and desire to cram as many stories as possible into an hour suggested that the team might run out of ideas and energy by the end of May.

But for every rough patch, there were signs that "Twin Cities Live" might very well be right up Tammi's alley.

Inspired casting

The most promising aspect is the casting. Hanson, 32, comes from a long career in sports radio. He has never done television, never ironed a shirt, would have difficulty boiling an egg and, until a couple weeks ago, had never had a glass of wine.

"Last year, I was covering the NCAA basketball tournament," said Hanson, who looks as if he just walked off the set of a Vince Vaughn movie. "During this year's tournament, I was in a makeup chair."

He's a fish out of water -- and that's a stroke of brilliance. Female viewers get an affable guy's guy who reminds them of their hapless boyfriends and husbands. Male viewers get a figure they can relate to, even when the subject turns to bathroom accessories and flower arrangements. (The rehearsal's most hilarious moment came when Hanson tried, in vain, to roll up a hand towel.)

"My dad came to one of the rehearsals and said he really liked the show, despite the lame subjects," Hanson said.

It's his father who led him to the gig. Hanson, who grew up in the Twin Cities area but was working for ESPN in Las Vegas for the past few years, was in Burnsville last fall visiting Dad, who has cancer, when he heard about a cattle-call audition at the Mall of America for the new show. On a whim, he showed up, got tagged as No. 311 and waited 2 1/2 hours for his interview.

Executive producer Mandy Grosser, a 27-year-old wunderkind with the ability to speak for two minutes straight without taking a breath, was immediately impressed. Hanson, who is single, was one of a dozen who made the MOA cut and quickly rose to the top, even beating out seasoned professionals.

Finding his counterpart, someone who could guide the average Joe through the staples of daytime TV, turned out to be a tougher task. The search was so difficult that Grosser had to push back the launch date four months. The winner turned out to be Twin Cities area native Wood, who spent the past seven years anchoring and reporting in Milwaukee.

Wood, a 32-year-old wife and mother of two small children, comes across as the show's experienced hand (both on and off the set), more than willing to put up with Hanson's shenanigans and even push back from time to time.

"This really is my dream job," said Wood, who displays a chipper attitude without sliding into Kathie Lee Gifford territory. "When I got the call from Amanda, I pretended to be calm and cool, but as soon as I hung up the phone, all I could say was, 'Yes, yes, yes, yes!'"

That kind of enthusiasm translates well on the small screen, but it won't stop longtime Minnesotans from sizing up the daytime newcomers with their predecessors.

"I know there are going to be comparisons to 'Good Company,' and in many ways we're going to have the same spirit of that show," Hanson said. "But we're doing something that's more active. They were more family-focused. We're more fun-focused."

Will there be enough of a "fun factor" for the show to become an afternoon tradition?

That will be up to Tammi.

njustin@startribune.com • 612-673-7431