Ch. 14 moves 'Ellen' to noon

Well, as it turns out, Utahns weren't all that interested in watching a daytime talk show at night.

KJZZ-Ch. 14 this week moved "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" from weekdays at 8 p.m. to weekdays at noon. Which, frankly, makes a lot more sense. It's designed as a daytime talk show, after all.

And it's a very good one. DeGeneres is the best thing to hit daytime talk in years. And now she's hitting daytime here in Utah. Her show is fresh, fun and entertaining — no teenagers undergoing paternity tests as they scream at each other while their infants languish backstage.

(Speaking of that, "Maury Povich" has moved to weekdays at 9 a.m. on Ch. 14. Ick.)

DeGeneres has delivered on the promises she made before the show premiered in September — that her program would in no way be "political"; that her goal would be entertainment only.

"I love making people happy," she told TV critics. "I love making people laugh. . . . And I think people will feel that I love doing it. I want to make people happy. I think there's a very big need for that in the world today — that people just need to be entertained and laugh really hard."

What DeGeneres does is make her guests comfortable and encourages them to be funny, too. It's like a party to which viewers have been invited.

And, nationally, the ratings have been very good. "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" has already been renewed for next season.

Hopefully, given its new daytime slot, ratings will pick up here as well. Entertainment is a precious commodity that too rarely shows up in talk shows and needs to be encouraged when it does.

GOOD AND BAD: As an independent station competing against network affiliates, KJZZ has to offer alternatives to prime-time programming on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, UPN and the WB. Which is why scheduling popular game shows "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy!" at 7 and 7:30 p.m., respectively, makes a lot of sense.

And scheduling of "Ellen DeGeneres" in prime time wasn't necessarily such a bad idea. It just didn't happen to work real well.

So Ch. 14 has returned to airing movies weeknights at 8 p.m. (At least on those weeknights that don't happen to involve NBA or college basketball telecasts.)