TELEVISION: Cable's Big Squeeze

New channels are lining up for space, but good ideas are being shoved aside by more of the same old thing

Tom Bergeron and Laurie Hibberd are new on the job, but already they are the most laid-back personalities on morning television. While camera operators and stagehands wander in and out of shots, the co-hosts of Breakfast Time, a new morning show on the fX cable network, sidle from room to room in their spacious, apartment-like set in New York City. When not trading quips with a wisecracking hand puppet, they introduce segments that make Good Morning America look like The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour: a visit to an Oklahoma ostrich farm; an interview with a Florida man who makes furniture out of junk;...

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