CURTAIN MAY CLOSE ON EBERT’S AT THE MOVIES

Roger Ebert said on Monday that he can no longer finance his public television movie review feature Ebert Presents At the Movies on his own and that unless he finds an underwriter, it will go off the air for good at the end of the season. Ebert revealed that since the new iteration of his long-running show featuring Christy Lemire and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky debuted on American Public Television last January, he has been funding it out of his own pocket, except for a $25,000 donation from the Kanbar Charitable Trust. “We can’t afford to support the show any longer. That’s what it comes down to,” he wrote on his blog, noting that by any measure of performance it has been a success. However, Ebert noted, “American Public Television wants to know if they can tell their member stations we’ll be back in 2012. We have to give them our answer this month. Unless we find underwriting, I’m afraid our answer will have to be ‘no.'”